


Masks / Plunge

by Cordria



Category: Danny Phantom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2019-10-13
Packaged: 2020-12-14 11:20:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 32,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21014924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cordria/pseuds/Cordria
Summary: Masks: Sometimes, people hide who they truly are behind masks. This is a short story about the day that Lancer decides enough is enough when it comes to Daniel Fenton. Plunge: Now that Lancer has learned the truth and has let Danny out of his office, Danny needs to face the next hurdle: his parents. (originally posted to Fanfiction as two 4-part stories in 2007-2008. Posted here as one 8-part story in 2019. Not yet edited)





	1. Masks: The Punishment

_One of the masks was the human face that he showed to the world. Clumsy and  
_ _average, this mask was nothing special. He was the kid that sat in the back of  
_ _the room, got bullied by those who were above him, and dreamed of nothing more  
_ _than being 'popular' and scraping through school. He messed up his hair  
_ _and stared at his shoes. If anything important came along, he made sure to be as  
_ _far from it as possible. Nobody paid much attention him. This mask worked very  
_ _hard to con people into believing he wasn't worth paying any attention to._

* * *

_-3:27pm_

Edward Lancer sank into his chair, staring at the boy who was, by far, his most frustrating student. Most of the student body – and most of the faculty – thought that he despised young Daniel Fenton. He knew that he came across as being rather harsh on Daniel when it came to punishments and consequences… but hated him? That was about as far from the truth as anyone could get.

He could still remember the Daniel that had walked into sixth grade. Lancer had been doing a stint as a long-term substitute and the scruffy eleven-year-old had quickly become one of his favorite students. While the young boy hadn't been extremely talented when it came to school work, he had been smart and eager to learn. Lancer had immediately seen something of himself in Daniel's sparkling eyes and had never forgotten him.

When Daniel had finally appeared at his door for his ninth grade year, he had seen a very similar student – all the way down to the messy hair, untied tennis shoes, and the genuine desire to learn. For the first few weeks of school, Daniel Fenton had been the sixth grader that Lancer remembered so fondly. Then, suddenly and inexplicably, Daniel changed. He became a behavior problem; skipping school, refusing to do his homework, and getting caught in the middle almost every mess.

Lancer had responded exactly how experience told him to respond. Set limits, set consequences, stick with them; the more freedom he gets, the more defiant and wayward he will become. Edward Lancer worked hard to find time in his busy schedule to keep tabs on his remembered student, watching Daniel very carefully and doling out consequences as needed. Every time he handed out another detention, he hoped it would be the last. He wished that Daniel would get it through his head to just behave and do what he was asked.

But it never was the last detention. Each time he held out that pink slip of paper or the latest bad grade, he watched the sad frustration grow in his pupil's eyes and Lancer felt a small part of him crumble. He knew within months that Daniel's problem was not a normal teenage problem. He could see it in the set of Daniel's shoulders as he quietly accepted the consequences like it was something beyond his control. He could see it in the sympathy of his friends when they found out. Lancer's solution of limits and consequences wasn't going to work.

Without any other ideas, Lancer kept up with it, crossing his fingers that Daniel would snap out of it and be back to his happy-go-lucky former self. For a year, Daniel quietly accepted whatever was given to him. For a year, Lancer quietly struggled with the fact that his student would be in detention nearly every day… and he hadn't done a thing about it but watch.

Today, about a month into Daniel's sophomore year of high school, that was all going to change. No more sitting quietly and watching. This was why Edward Lancer was sitting in his favorite chair, staring at his most frustrating student and waiting for an answer to his question.

"I'm _fine_, Mr. Lancer."

That was the same answer he'd gotten the previous seven tries at asking what was wrong. At least the boy was consistent. "If you were _fine_, Mr. Fenton, you wouldn't have skipped my class today. If you were _fine_, I would have let you go home already."

"Come on." Daniel's blue eyes flicked up to the clock impatiently. "School got out almost fifteen minutes ago. Can I leave?"

"No." Lancer folded his arms and settled back into his ancient chair, wincing when it groaned. "You can leave when you tell me the truth."

Daniel's incredulous expression almost made the teacher burst out laughing. "You can't keep me here forever!"

Lancer let a tired grin cross his face. He had the distinct feeling that this was going to be a _long_ night. But, hopefully, it would be well worth it in the end. "I've already called your parents. They're okay with you having pizza for supper, should this last that long, and the phone number for Pizza 'Spress is on a sticky note by the phone." He grinned, an almost menacing tone entering his voice. "My wife will drop off sleeping bags and breakfast, need be."

With a shudder – most likely at the thought of having to suffer through a sleepover with a teacher, Lancer figured – Daniel pleaded, "But it's _Friday_."

"And tomorrow's Saturday, and, if I'm not mistaken, the day after that is Sunday. Believe me, I have lots better things to do than sit here. So just answer my question and we can all get back to whatever we wanted to do."

Daniel sank back into his chair. "This can't possibly be legal. You _can't_ keep me here."

"Oh, it is and I can. This definitely isn't something I do for all my students, but your parents and I need to understand what's wrong. Desperate times call for desperate measures." Lancer raised one eyebrow. "So… what's wrong?"

"_I'm fine!_"

Edward Lancer ignored the emphatic answer and turned his chair towards his computer to open up his email, biting back a groan when there were no new messages to waste time reading. "When you're ready to talk, give me a holler."

"There's nothing to _tell!_" Daniel glared daggers at his teacher in a fashion on teenagers could pull off. "This is _pointless_."

Lancer got out of his chair and walked around his desk. "When was the last time you told me the truth, Mr. Fenton?" There was no rancor in his voice, no blaming. It was just a simple question, asking for a simple answer. "When was the last time you vanished from my classroom and _didn't_ come back with a lie and an excuse?"

Daniel crossed his arms and turned his head away. "I'm fine."

"It's been a long time," the teacher said. "I almost got used to the idea of you lying to me all the time. I almost got used to the fact that you vanish without warning and come back looking like you just tried out for the Olympic wrestling team. _That's_ why you're here." Lancer walked over to the bookcase and pulled a small book off the shelf before returning to his desk. "You're here because I almost stopped caring."

For a second, Daniel looked off balance, but then he rolled his eyes and settled deeper into the chair. "I don't have to talk to you."

"No," Lancer let out a slow breath as he opened his book, "you don't. But I don't have to let you leave, so we're even."

* * *

_ _-4:09pm_ _

Lancer had his feet propped up on his desk as he stared down at the page of his book, completely captivated by the story of a young man struggling to learn to do what he did every day. How this man captured his students' attention and got them to do some _real _writing was fascinating. Lancer had to literally pull teeth to get even a random string of sentences out of his apathetic students.

_I studied my students' faces. If anyone was having an epiphany, it wasn't obvious. There was no swelling music, as there would be in a movie, no close-up zooms of faces filled with awe. The most I could see was that I had their full attention – or, more accurately, that islands did. I seized the moment. In a quiet voice, so as not to break the spell, I said, "Take out a sheet of paper, please. I'd like you each to write a poem. Make your first line 'If I were an island…' Then go on to describe an island you might be. Would you be deserted? Would there be animals? Magic? Strange, sweet music? Would it have—"_

_CLANG CLANG CLANG._

_Damn damn damn: a fire drill._

Lancer grinned at the unfortunate timing, glancing up to make sure Daniel was still in the room. It'd been so quiet the past forty-five minutes, he had to keep glancing up to make sure the boy hadn't snuck out of the room. But Daniel was just continuing to stare quietly at the wall, his eyes unfocused and his mind obviously a million miles away.

In his own mind, Edward Lancer chalked up another item on the list of 'strange' about the fifteen-year-old. It was completely… wrong… for a teenager to sit so silently and so perfectly still for this long. A normal student would be fidgeting and bored, wanting to talk and complain, looking for something to do to stay busy.

Daniel was just sitting. Staring.

Shaking his head very slightly, Lancer ripped his eyes away from his very odd student. After a year of incorrect guesses, assumptions gone wrong, and dead-end circles with his thoughts, he wasn't even going to take a guess as to what was wrong with the boy anymore. He would just wait. And wait, and wait, and wait if he needed to.

Biting back a sigh, he rolled his stiffening neck and buried himself back in his book. Daniel Fenton couldn't stay quiet forever.

_CLANG CLANG CLANG._

_In frustration, I gently banged my forehead on the blackboard, Charlie Brown style…_

* * *

_-5:37pm_

Sticking a bookmark into the page, Lancer quietly set his book down and stretched with a soft groan. He was getting too old to stay sitting in the ancient chair in his office for this length of time. He glanced up at his young charge and wrinkled his forehead in confusion. Daniel was still lost in how own little world – to all extents and purposes the boy hadn't moved a muscle in a little over two hours.

"What do you want on your half of the pizza?" he asked, blinking in surprise when Daniel flinched at the sudden noise, his head whipping around and his whole body tensing. For just a split second, his eyes… flashed?

"What?" The boy shook his head slightly before relaxing and focusing on his teacher.

Lancer studied his student for a moment. That reaction was… His thoughts trailed off and he just let it drop with a small sigh and repeated himself. "What do you want on the pizza?"

Daniel raised a skeptical eyebrow. "You're actually going to follow through with it? You're going to keep me here until I tell you this big 'secret'?" He brought his hands up for a set of those infamous air quotes. "Even though I've said a few times now that there _isn't_ one?"

Lancer shook his head, unwilling to get dragged into an argument. "Pizza?"

"Pepperoni and pineapple, please."

As he reached over to grab the phone, Lancer felt a small smile stretch his lips. "Excellent alliteration."

"Do I want to know what that is?" Daniel grumbled sourly as he recrossed his arms and slumped lower in his chair.

"All the 'P's." Lancer glanced at him as he dialed for the number for Pizza 'Spress, blinking in surprise when the smallest of smiles flickered across Danny's face.

"Yup, I didn't want to know," he mumbled.

Lancer watched his student return to blankly staring at the wall while he ordered the pizza – half pepperoni and pineapple and half sausage. Quietly hanging up the phone, he decided it was time to make a move. Two hours of silence was testing _his _patience. He needed to get Daniel to admit to _something_.

After a few minutes of contemplating, Edward Lancer picked his plan of attack. For a brief moment, he wondered if he'd actually be able to pull it off. In the world of misdirection and the theater he wasn't considered anywhere near 'good'. But he jumped into his idea feet first and ran with it. "You're a very good actor," Lancer said softly.

Daniel blinked and shot him a surprised look. "I'm not an actor."

"Yes, you are." Lancer picked up his book and propped his feet up. He bit his lip to prevent himself from looking up or giving Daniel any sort of idea that he was paying _extremely_ close attention to the boy's reaction to his next words. "You act very hyper and defiant, but you're really not. You act stupid and clumsy, when I _know_ you're not." Hiding his smile behind his book, Lancer added one last sentence very softly, "You act very normal…"

"What's that supposed to mean!" Daniel jumped out of his chair, his face a strange combination of pale white and angry red. "I'm _normal_."

"That's the problem, Mr. Fenton. You go _out of your way_ to be normal. You're the most 'normal' kid in school, with the exception of skipping class all the time. You're so normal that it's got to be an act." Lancer continued to stare down at the page he wasn't really reading, ignoring the fuming teenager.

Daniel mumbled darkly to himself for a few minutes as Lancer absently turned the page and continued to stare at the flowing words. "So what?" the boy finally said. "Everybody _wants_ to be normal. So what if I'm trying and succeeding? What's the big deal?"

With a shrug, Lancer said, "You're just incredibly good at it. So good, that you can completely hide whatever it is that wrong with you."

"Not good enough, apparently."

"No, not quite." Lancer glanced up from his book to study his student for a moment, internally cheering at the fact that Daniel had finally revealed that there at least _was_ something he was hiding. Daniel looked a little lost, struggling to figure out what to do next. "All I want, Mr. Fenton, is the truth."

Daniel silently shook his head.

"Then I'll wait. I have plenty of books to read."

* * *

_-_6:01pm__

"What do you want from me?" Daniel Fenton asked softly. He reached down and grabbed a slice of his half of the pizza, carefully picking off all the pineapple pieces and eating them first.

Lancer raised an eyebrow at the odd behavior, but shrugged it off. "I want the truth. I've already said that."

"But what if I can't tell you anything?" Daniel didn't look up from his slice of pizza. "Are you seriously going to keep me here _forever?_" His eyes flickered up for a second. "It'll be torture, but I'm sure I can last out a simple weekend."

"Would it help if I promised that nothing you told me would leave this room?" Lancer took a big bite of his own pizza slice.

Daniel looked at his teacher through his unruly hair. "Nothing? Even if, say, my life was in danger?"

Edward Lancer froze for a half-second before returning to slowly chewing. His mind was reeling with the implications of that simple question. Was Daniel implying that his life was at risk? What could this young boy have gotten into that would come to _that_? What in the world was he going to do if Daniel's life really _was_ in danger? Was Daniel telling him this as a plea for help? "Is it?"

To Lancer, the silence coming out of Daniel was telling. The teacher was scrambling backwards with his thoughts. He had gone into this figuring it was just some kind of simple teenage thing… but perhaps he needed to call a professional. A therapist, or a councilor, or, at the very least, the police.

Daniel shook his head after a very long moment, but Lancer wasn't completely convinced. Daniel had hesitated for too long. _Something_ was wrong with the boy, something that was very important. Watching Daniel quietly continue to eat his half of the pizza with his eyes fixed firmly anywhere but on his teacher, Lancer strengthened his resolve.

Daniel Fenton was not going to leave this office until Lancer knew _exactly _what was going on.


	2. Masks: The Acknowledgment

_The second mask was the polar opposite of the first. This mask was overly_  
bold and daring, willing to try anything and take death-defying risks. His eyes  
glittered and his smile made people stop and stare. He was smart and sure and  
fast, the ultimate role model to the high-schoolers of the town. There was nothing  
this mask couldn't do. It had taken months of work for people to believe that  
this mask was a hero… and nothing at all like the first mask.

* * *

_-7:14pm_

"Yeah, we'll grab the cots out of storage. Just bring some blankets and that laundry basket of stuff I put together." Lancer grinned into the phone as he listened to his wife talk for a minute. "No, we'll be fine. I put food in the basket. _Yes, I put real food in there too."_

He looked at Daniel out of the corner of his eye for a moment as he listened to his wife talk, then nodded into the phone before remembering she couldn't see him. "Yes, we might be here all weekend," he said and had to fight down a small laugh when Daniel rolled his eyes and slumped farther into his chair with an audible groan. "Maybe part of next week too."

"You've got the spare key to the front door of the school? Excellent. I'll see you in a bit, then. Bye." Lancer quietly hung up the phone and turned to his student. "Now you're in for it, you know. We'll be here all night and I'm going to be grumpy in the morning. Those cots are hard."

"Why won't you just let me leave and not suffer through sleeping on a cot then?" Daniel pleaded. "I _promise_ I'm fine. I'm not into anything dangerous or illegal. I swear I'll never ever _EVER_ to skip a class again. Ever. I'll even act less normal, okay? Can I just leave?"

"No, we're staying right here."

"Why?!" By the look in Daniel's eyes, the word had come out a lot harsher than he had meant it to.

"Because you're worth it." Lancer chuckled at the over-used phrase, watching Daniel roll his eyes and settle for a simmering glare.

After a long minute, he said, "I can't tell you. We're going to be here forever."

"That's a long time," Lancer mussed. "I might get caught up on paperwork for once." He glanced back down at the novel sitting on his desk he had just wasted the past two hours reading and shrugged. "Or maybe not. This is an excellent book and I've got quite a ways to go."

Daniel Fenton groaned and buried his head in his hands.

* * *

_-7:37pm_

_I hadn't realized I was expected to give homework, so I furiously dug through my mind and remembered the best assignment I was ever given, one that changed my life. "On your way to school tomorrow," I told my students, "notice something new, something you've never seen before, some little thing you'll be glad you saw."_

_I remember doing that homework. I remember walking to school as a little boy, amazed at all the things I'd never..._

Lancer was jolted out of his book when someone suddenly knocked on his door. Or, more likely from the way it sounded, a certain someone had just kicked his door a few times with a familiar steel-toed boot.

Not much to the teacher's surprise, Daniel jumped out of his seat to get the door. Lancer shook his head as he added this to his list of examples of the strange duality of his most puzzling student. Normal kids who caused as many problems Daniel wouldn't have gotten up to get the door… even _with_ some kind of prompting.

As he ticked off more strange things about the boy in his mind, Lancer struggled to suppress a small grin as he waited to see the expression on the boy's face when the door finally opened. Most of his students assumed he was still a bachelor since his wife wasn't around much during the school year. Even when she was around, a lot of his students wouldn't ever peg her for the 'marrying Mr. Lancer' type of woman.

Lancer let his smile bloom when the door opened and Daniel froze, staring at the gorgeous woman holding a large laundry basket full of supplies. "Evening," she said with a small smile, letting her warm eyes drift past the staring teenager and land on Lancer. Bella's hair was – as usual – uniquely styled into long, black, beaded braids that were piled artfully on her head. "Can you…" she trailed off, her arms trembling at the effort of holding up the heavy basket.

Daniel instantly reached forwards and took the basket out of her hands. Carrying it into the room and setting it onto the floor, he shot her another curious look.

Bella smiled at Daniel and tipped her head to the side. "You don't look like the troublemaker Edward is always complaining about," she stated with a smile. Then she took a few steps forward and held out her hand. "Isabella Lancer, but you can call me Bella," she winked.

"Danny…" the boy trailed off, quietly shaking her hand. "I didn't know Mr. Lancer was married."

"Antiquities dealer," she responded brightly, "not around a lot. And I've expressly forbidden him from putting a picture of me on his desk. I don't want him to get tired of looking at me."

Lancer felt a small flush on his cheeks, fighting it down and standing up to give his wife a short kiss. "Thanks for bringing all this stuff."

"No problem, although if you've going to be doing this more often, get an office on the _first_ floor."

"I'll look into it," he said with a smile.

"Excellent. Don't forget that I'm leaving for that Paris show on Tuesday, so you _do_ need to come home at some point before then. I'm not leaving for two weeks in Europe without you having said goodbye."

Lancer smiled and then glanced towards his student with a raised eyebrow. "Will we be done by Tuesday?"

"Tuesday?" Daniel said weakly. "_That long_?"

"I think we'll be done." Lancer wrapped his wife in a hug. "I'll see you tomorrow, probably," he whispered into her ear.

"You have high hopes. You're a lot more fun to be around than people guess," she breathed back, returning the hug before vanishing back through the door with a, "Bye!" shouted over her shoulder.

"Tuesday?" Daniel repeated as the door clicked shut, then he turned to Lancer and blinked at him. "You're _married?_ You're bugging me about secrets, and you're _married…_ to _her?_!"

* * *

_-8:47pm_

Popping the last few goldfish crackers into his mouth, Lancer leaned back in his chair and studied the latest test he was attempting to grade. Really, he deserved all this grading for letting the darn things pile up for over a week, but he still felt obligated to complain – loudly – in his own mind. He spent all this time correcting and he wasn't sure the students were learning anything. More than likely, over half the students would throw the test in the trash after just glancing at the grade. To top it all off, he wasn't even sure the students had _read_ the test, much less the books they had chosen, based on the answers he was getting.

Amazed that the current student had managed to get two of the questions right by the end of the test, he dropped it onto the growing stack of corrected material and glanced up. Daniel had fallen back into an 'I don't want to talk' mode almost forty-five minutes ago, choosing to sit quietly and stare out the window.

"Daniel…" Lancer trailed off, unsure of what he was trying to say, but knowing that he needed to ask something.

The teenager blinked and shook himself out of his daze. Turning an inquisitive glance in his teacher's direction, he asked, he asked, "What?"

"Why don't you want to talk to me?" Lancer leaned forwards, propping his elbows up on his desk and setting his chin on his folded hands. "Is it because I'm your teacher?"

Daniel shrugged uncomfortably. "I don't like to talk to anyone. It's not because you're a teacher, or an adult, or anything."

"I'm just confused as to why you feel that you can't talk to me."

Again, a dismissive shrug met Lancer's question. "Secrets are easier to keep when nobody knows them." Daniel's gaze drifted past Lancer and out into the darkening sky, adding, "And then nobody can use them against you," under his breath.

Lancer hesitated, knowing that his student had probably meant that last bit to not be heard. "Surely you realize I'm not going to use anything against you."

"How would you know?" Daniel asked, his eyebrows furrowing. "You have no idea what you're getting into – and I happen to know _for a fact_ that you wouldn't keep it a secret. You'd have the universe on a platter… all for a secret that you would easily give away with the explanation that it was the 'right thing to do because he's a minor and my student and he could get hurt'."

"You'll have to trust me, Daniel. I wouldn't do something like that." Lancer leaned back in his chair, picking up the next test in his pile. _Universe on a platter? 'The Looking Glass Wars', what is he talking about?_

The teenager took a deep breath with a serious look in his eyes. "You'll have to trust me, Mr. Lancer. You would."

Raising one eyebrow, Lancer didn't answer. Instead, he scanned the sloppy test he'd picked up, mentally assigning the exam a failing grade before he even glanced up at the name. _Danny Fenton._ "Huh." A tiny grin drifted onto his face as he leaned backwards in his chair, propped his feet up on his desk, and settled in to read.

* * *

_-10:04pm_

Lancer groaned quietly, stretching and letting his pen drop to the desk. He was now officially sick of homework. Not for the first time, he vowed never to give out another homework assignment that he had to correct.

A glance at the clock on the wall told him that it was just after ten at night. He wasn't used to staying up this late on weeknights and his body was complaining. His back was the loudest of the complainers, followed closely by his neck and his fingers. Quietly grabbing his stack of completed work and sticking the papers back into the well-used manila folder, he grinned in satisfaction. On average, his students had done excellently on that particular homework assignment – they actually seemed to understand the concept he'd taught for once.

While he dropped the folder onto the ground in the pile of things 'to be grabbed on Monday', Edward Lancer studied Daniel out of the corner of his eye. It was more than a little creepy how perfectly quiet Daniel had been all night. Other than random conversation around supper, he hadn't done anything but sit in that chair and stare at the wall. Lancer had tried a few times to figure out what the boy was staring at with absolutely no luck.

Actually, Edward Lancer had begun wondering over an hour ago if Daniel was even breathing anymore. It had taken ten minutes of surreptitious studying to catch the steady rise and fall of the boy's chest. Other than breathing and the occasional eye-blink, Daniel hadn't moved in hours. It was almost like he was frozen or asleep… or dead. Just for a second, a smile twitched at the corner of Lancer's mouth as a picture of Daniel Fenton – Undead Teenager – jumped unbidden into his brain.

Lancer cleared his throat. "Daniel?"

As Daniel's head swiveled towards him, twin ice-blue eyes piercing into him and a small smile flickering onto his face, Lancer's mind continued to revel in the 'undead' idea, wandering around in circles trying to decide why the smile seemed to bring the boy's face to life. There hadn't been anything un-life-like about his face before. "Yeah, Mr. Lancer? Are you letting me go home now?"

With a morose chuckle, Lancer shook his head to clear out those random thoughts. He'd been up too late watching horror movies lately. Daniel was not some zombie that was going to suck his brains out tonight while he was sleeping. "No. We're going to go get the cots from the closet and I'm going to bed. I'm too old to stay up until midnight anymore.

The boy seemed to deflate a little, but the small smile stayed on his face. "Can't stay up all night, huh? That must stink."

"I stay up every now and then," Lancer argued back, feeling his back pop as he stood up. "There are fewer people online and I can get farther in…" He hesitated, shaking his head with a grin. "Let's get the cots."

"Get farther in what?" Daniel slipped out of his chair and trailed after the older teacher into the shadowy hallway. The school was illuminated only by a few random emergency lights that gave the place a red cast. It gave Lancer the feeling of the place being extremely empty and haunted.

"I'm not allowed a few secrets and you are?" Lancer asked, wondering why Daniel decided to finally relax a little and open up for some idle conversation. His thoughts settled for a second on the hopes that his student would tell him what was wrong and they could go home and sleep in their own beds, but he brushed that off as wishful thinking. He had the distinct feeling that the two of them would be here all night – if not longer. Fishing his keys out his pockets, Lancer searched in the dark shadows for the key that would open the janitor's closet.

Daniel leaned up against the wall, stretching his arms over his head. "I'm a teenager. I'm naturally secretive around anybody that's over the age of eighteen. It's my job."

"I'm a teacher, I'm naturally secretive around students, it's _my_ job," Lancer mumbled back, fumbling through the keys and cursing the fact that he'd have to go back to the office to get a flashlight. There was no way that he'd be able to get the right key without some light. He could have _sworn_ that there was supposed to be a light right over this door. It must be burned out. "Key fourteen, key fourteen… _Great Gatsby_, it's so dark."

"Here." Daniel picked the keys out of the teacher's fingers for a second before putting them back, one key outstretched. In the deep shadows, Lancer could make out Daniel take a small step backwards and rub the back of his neck. "I see in the dark pretty well," he said simply, not seeming to notice the oddity of what he'd just done.

"More than pretty well." Lancer handed the keys back, keeping his tone light and struggling to keep the disbelief out of his voice. There was no way that Daniel could have read the numbers in this light. His eyes were bad, but not _that_ bad. "Think you can continue and unlock the door for me?"

"Sure," he said quietly, cold fingers taking the keys out of Lancer's hands and quickly fitting the right one into the door. It took only a second for him to push the door open and poke his head into the closet to find the light switch.

Blinking into the dazzling brightness, Lancer reached out and touched his student's shoulder. "How did you do that?"

"Do what?" Daniel twisted around, that relaxed grin on his face dying away as he saw the strange look on Lancer's face.

When Lancer saw his student start to shut down and clam up again, his brain jumped into gear. "Nothing," Lancer said with a small smile, not wanting to press it and ruin what little progress he'd made, "Do you see the cots?"

Blue eyes studied him for a moment longer before turning to peer into the closet. Lancer quietly shook his head, amazed at the growing list of strange things surrounding Daniel Fenton: sitting too still, being too quiet, the seeing in the dark… but Lancer wasn't sure what they added up to. All he had was the growing belief that Daniel's problems were probably well beyond his ability to help.

"Here," Daniel said, yanking the first cot out of the back of the closet and passing it to Lancer.

"Thanks," Lancer said softly, setting the heavy folding cot down on the ground. What had he gotten himself in to with this? He hadn't felt this _helpless_ with one of his students – ever.

Daniel picked up a second one and carefully set it down in the hall before flipping off the lights of the janitor's closet and closing the door. "Want me to lock it?"

Lancer shook his head into the darkness, his eyes adjusting to the sudden change in lights and not able to see a thing. "We'll be bringing the cots back in the morning anyways."

"Wonderful," the boy sighed, picking up his cot and effortlessly carrying it down the hallway. After a few feet, he suddenly stopped and twisted around, his eyes seeming to glow eerily in the emergency lights. "You realize I've got no other clothes to wear. I'm going to be stuck in these jeans and shirt all weekend, right?"

"You didn't look in the basket my wife brought, did you?" Lancer chuckled, "she plans for everything." Picking up his heavy cot, he half-carried, half-dragged the thing towards his office with the full intention of being asleep in fifteen minutes or less.

* * *

_-11:19pm_

Lancer's eyes drifted open in the darkness of his office. For a second, he blinked blearily at the moonlight shining through his small window as he tried to figure out what exactly had woken him up.

"Stupid teachers," a voice breathed and Lancer froze, unwilling to let Daniel know that he was awake. "What does he think he's doing? Doesn't he realize how horrible this would be if it all fell apart?"

_What_? He glanced over towards the mirror and could just make out the shape of Daniel, sitting on his cot, through the darkness. _What would fall apart?_

"Of course he doesn't," Daniel's voice continued, the figure in the mirror shaking his head sourly before returning his gaze down at a small rectangular object in his lap, "he doesn't understand."

_Are you going to tell me?_ Lancer pleaded in his mind, but silence reigned in the classroom. After too many long moments, Lancer's eyelids started to droop again, but Daniel suddenly moved. If Lancer hadn't been watching in the mirror, he never would have known that his student got out of the cot and wandered across the office. He made absolutely no sound. The quiet of the school was intense and perfect this late at night – except for the ever-present ticking of the clock on the wall – but Lancer couldn't even heard soft footfalls as his student walked across the room.

Daniel hesitated in front of Lancer's desk, softly replacing the object where it belonged. With a start, Lancer realized that the boy had picked up the picture of his 'sister'. "He's _married_," Daniel muttered again, clear disbelief in his whispered voice. "Of all the people to keep a secret…"

Lancer watched as the shape in the mirror drifted silently back across the room and dropped noiselessly onto the cot – which was a physical impossibility based on how squeaky the cots were.

"Why does he _care_?" Daniel continued to murmur into the darkness. The boy sighed darkly. "I _can't_ tell him. How can I get him to understand that?"

Still struggling to hold still, Lancer suppressed his own desire to sigh along with his student. _Maybe this whole thing wasn't such a good idea. I should just give up and call some professionals; this is beyond me. I was stupid to even consider…_

"But he never did tell my parents about cheating on the C.A.T." An almost silent chuckle drifted through the still air. "He did in that alternate timeline, but not in this one, so I suppose that counts for something."

Lancer physically bit his lip at that. _Alternate time line? What in the world…?_

"He's not going to let me go, is he?" Daniel continued softly, an almost wistful sound to his voice. "And I can't just leave. But what if…"

Watching Daniel push his hand through his messy hair, Lancer wondered how Daniel would have completed that dangling sentence. But what if… what? He silently ground his teeth in frustration. These little half-thoughts were almost worse than when there were no thoughts at all.

"He already knows something."

_I wish I knew something…_ Lancer mused. _I wish I knew what you seem to think I know. Could you tell me?_

"It'd be nice to tell someone…" Daniel breathed softly, almost as if answering Lancer's unspoken question.

Lancer held perfectly still, waiting for his student to say something, but nothing more was said. Listening to nothing but the loud ticking of the clock, the teacher drifted back to sleep.

* * *

_-2:34am_

Lancer jumped a little from the cold hand touching his shoulder. He rolled onto his back, blinking in surprise when Daniel flicked on a flashlight and stared at him for a long moment. "If I tell you, I get to leave?" he asked suddenly.

Lancer nodded, sitting up. "When you tell me the _truth_, you get to leave."

"Here." Daniel held three small pieces of paper out towards his teacher, licking his lips. "The truth."

With a confused look, Edward Lancer took the papers and the flashlight, flipping through them. They were three simple lists. He wrinkled his forehead as he read them over quickly, trying to figure out what they were for.

F.  
-clumsy  
-shy  
-nervous  
-stupid  
-scared  
-loser

P.  
-brave  
-strong  
-powerful  
-heroic  
-risk-taker

D.  
-easy-going  
-joker  
-smart  
-accepting  
-confident

"Jazz made you do these at one point, huh?" Lancer said softly and sat up, wincing at the loud squeaking of the cot.

Daniel looked startled for a moment, then nodded. "Like you said before, I'm an actor – I play parts, I wear different masks. Jazz was worried that I'd fall too far into some roll and forget who I really was, so she made me figure out what personality traits went with which one."

"I know these," Lancer added softly, "I've seen you being clumsy and shy, and I've seen you joking around with your friends. Two of these 'masks' of yours I know." He pushed the second list, labeled with a simple 'P.' towards Daniel. "I don't know this one, but I have no doubt you play this version of you very well."

"Can I go now?" Daniel asked hopefully.

"No." Lancer folded his arms and waited for the outburst that was about to happen. He was about to make a leap of logic and there was a good possibility of it backfiring on him. Those three 'masks' Daniel had written down were undoubtedly true… but none of them explained the teenager that had been sitting so unnaturally quietly and still in his office for the past ten hours. None of those masks explained the quiet pain that had been in his student's voice a few hours ago when he thought no one was listening.

Instead, there was silence. After a few impossibly quiet moments, Lancer opened his eyes. Daniel was staring at him with a very weird expression on his face. "Why not?" he finally asked.

"You're missing one."

The boy's shoulders slumped and something that was almost scared flickered in his eyes. Realizing that Daniel knew exactly what he meant without any sort of explanation, Lancer stomped down on a very predatory smile that had been trying to form on his face. He was _right_. He was… right…

But why would a teenager split himself into four different people and then hide some of them from the world? What would he have to gain? What in _How to Kill a Mockingbird's _name would he need to hide by doing that? Lancer flicked through the papers for a moment. D for Daniel and F for Fenton, those made sense. P for… Phenton? Was this some kind of weird case of multiple personalities?

_Secrets that he thinks will get him hurt, believing in alternate timelines, sitting too still and too quiet, multiple 'mask'-like personalities…_ Lancer's heart reached out for the teenager crouched on the floor next to him. _He really needs help! How could I have missed this for so long? What kind of teacher am I? Why didn't I do something before?_

Lancer shook his head a tiny bit, throwing himself out of that train of thought before it could spiral out of control. _Do something for him now, Edward. The next step would be to find out more about this fourth person. Do something._ Lancer pushed himself out of his cot, grabbing his pad of sticky notes off his desk. Scribbling 'Me' at the top, he held out the note to the defeated-looking teenager he'd trapped in his office. "You've got three very convincing masks, Daniel, and I'm not sure even your friends know who you are under them. But I can't let you leave until I know what's wrong. I need to know who you really are."

Silently, Daniel reached forwards and took the paper. Lancer looked into his eyes – confusion, fear, and doubt raging in them – and wondered if he was seeing the real Daniel Fenton for the first time.

Then, inexplicably, Daniel shivered and his breath seemed to fog in the soft light from the flashlight.


	3. Masks: The Revelation

_The third was the mask he showed only to a select few of the living. This was the  
_ _mask of a halfa. He smiled and joked with his friends, shrugged off things that  
_ _should have dug in deep, and had dreams of being something great. He wouldn't  
_ _let anything get him down – not school, or ghosts, or hunters, or anything. For  
_ _this mask, life was too much fun to be sad, or mad, or frightened._

* * *

_-2:42am_

Edward Lancer's forehead wrinkled when he saw his student's breath seem to fog in the air. It was too warm in his office for that. He blinked, decided to ignore it as a sleep-induced hallucination, and it happened again. Daniel breathed out and his breath fogged in the warm air. Even stranger, Daniel was close enough to Lancer that the teacher could feel the _cold_ air from Daniel's breath brush across his cheek. Daniel was breathing out… cold air?

"Um, Mr. Lancer…" Daniel's eyes seemed to dart around the room and Lancer felt a stab of familiarity ripple through him; he'd seen this behavior before. This happened right before Daniel came up with some excuse to leave the room.

"No."

"No what?" his student asked, blinking in surprise. Cold air seemed to be condensing around the boy, sending goosebumps racing up both of their arms.

"You can't leave."

Daniel was silent for a moment. "But…"

"I don't care what silly excuse you come up with, you're not going anywhere." There wasn't any anger or frustration in Lancer's voice – just a quiet confusion that bordered on stubbornness.

"But I have to go to the bathroom," Daniel muttered, getting up to leave.

Lancer was a heartbeat behind him, levering himself out of his cot and reaching out to grab the doorknob a moment before Daniel did. "You don't need to go to the bathroom," Lancer said a bit sourly. "Stop lying to me."

"Fine, maybe I don't," Daniel answered, glancing once over his shoulder. Then he turned back to his teacher, eyes wide with apprehension. "But I still have to leave."

"Tell me what's wrong first."

Daniel's gaze drifted back around the room for just a moment before he suddenly seemed to _change_. It wasn't anything physical that happened to him – he still looked exactly the same – but something had changed in that split-second that Lancer couldn't quite put his finger on. Daniel's shoulders were a bit more squared, his jaw a bit more set, his eyes a bit more purposeful. "No," Daniel said, "Move. I have to leave."

The pure authority and power in Daniel's simple command had Lancer releasing the doorknob he was holding before the teacher fully comprehended what had happened. Daniel told him to move, expected him to move, and Lancer… moved. Like a young boy given a direction by a parent, he took two steps to the side and watched in dazed amazement as Daniel walked past him.

_That was 'P', _Lancer's mind thought numbly. Anxious, fearful, loser Daniel Fenton had just turned into someone strong and commanding – right in front of Lancer's eyes. _Holy Dante's Inferno… what was that?_

Lancer stood perfectly still, his gaze locked on the door that had just swung shut behind his student. _That wasn't Daniel Fenton, not in a million years. _The scraps of paper, still clutched in one of his hands, crinkled as his fests clenched. _Daniel P._

A sudden bright flash of supernatural light from under the door made Lancer jump and his heart race for a moment in surprise. Even as it died away, leaving a bright line in his vision, Lancer knew what had caused it. Anyone who dealt with spirits as often as he did knew a ghost when he saw the evidence for one. "Ghost…"

He blinked a few times, the whispered word seeming to reverberate in the empty room as his brain clicked into gear. "_Daniel!_" Moving with a speed he hadn't attempted to use since he left the cheerleading squad in college, Lancer yanked open the door and stepped out into the hallway, scanning for his most confusing student. Even though the hallway was long, filled with locked doors, and he was only a matter of seconds behind Daniel, the corridor was empty.

"Daniel Fenton," he hissed into the quiet darkness, trying not to attract the attention of whatever ghost that was currently haunting the school. There was no answer beyond the distant buzz of the emergency lights. "Where…?"

_He could be hiding someplace, scared out of his mind. Or in trouble with the ghost. Or even just wandering and not know there's a problem. _Even though Lancer had the strangest feeling that none of those were the truth, he had to go searching for his wayward pupil. Morally and ethically he had to… and legally he'd probably get tarred and feathered if something happened to Daniel.

His mind whirling with all the stories he'd heard about ghosts – and he knew a lot, due to his friends' stories when he was growing up and where he'd chosen to work as an adult – he retreated back into his office long enough to grab the flashlight and drop the tiny pieces of paper onto his desk, then he ventured out into the dark. "Daniel!"

* * *

-_2:48am_

Lancer poked his head into the gymnasium, his flashlight beam swinging quickly around the shadowed room. "Mr. Fenton," he hissed softly. No response.

He glanced nervously over his shoulder, the dark recesses of the hallway making the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Logically, he knew that if a ghost were sneaking up behind him it would be accompanied by a rush of cold air and an impossible-to-mistake dead feeling in the air – but emotionally and mentally he was getting strung out. Every second thought that went through his mind was a picture of something behind him.

_"Made in America,_" he cursed softly, heading back out into the hallways. Quietly trying every door to make sure they were locked, he wove his way slowly towards the next place that he didn't think was closed: the cafeteria. "Mr. Fenton, where _are_ you?"

A scream sliced through the still air and Edward Lancer jumped, spinning around to stare in the direction of the sound. His heart racing, he tried to dissect the sound in his mind. "That didn't sound like Daniel," he finally whispered, staring down the deserted hallway, hoping to see any invisible ghosts before they spotted the all-too-visible him.

He shuddered when another shriek ripped through the school, transforming into a howl that raced up the scales to vanish into octaves too high for the human ear to hear. Lancer squirmed and had to shut his eyes as the sound swirled around in his brain, painfully making his head throb. Then, abruptly, the almost-heard sound was gone.

Lancer knew he was no ghost hunter. Lancer wasn't a superhero. Lancer didn't really qualify as _heroic_ in any sense – he didn't count that panic-induced time when he had thrown a fire extinguisher at a ghost (that had been more fear-induced insanity than heroics) – and his instincts were really fighting him to turn and run. The only reason he wasn't running right now was the ever-present thought that his student might be over where the ghost was. "Daniel," he said quietly, promising to himself that if there were a single shred of _proof_ that Daniel was over in the direction of the ghost, he'd head over there and try to help.

Almost a minute passed with no sound coming from the direction of the ghost, so Lancer sighed and shook his head, turning to continue heading towards the cafeteria. The stupid ghost wouldn't be coming for him; he had to get a grip. He reached out for the doors to the lunch room, his mind still bent on the idea of checking the school for his wayward student.

Before he could open the doors, he heard a soft noise behind him in the hallway, almost like a foot scuffling on the floor. Glancing nervously over his shoulder, he was met by two glowing green eyes.

* * *

-_2:56am_

With a shout of surprise, Edward Lancer flinched and the flashlight's beam wildly swung around to illuminate the creature behind him. Daniel Fenton squinted into the light, raising an arm to block it from striking his eyes. "Hey," he said sourly.

"Mr. Fenton," Lancer mumbled, letting the light drop to illuminate the teenager's feet. When Daniel dropped his arm back to his side, Lancer could see very clearly that Daniel's eyes were their normal blue. His pounding heart slowly settled back into a more normal pattern. "You startled me," he said after a moment, wondering where the green eyes had gone before chalking them up to his imagination.

"Sorry." Daniel sent him a small smile. "What are you doing?"

"I could ask you the same thing," Lancer shot back, his eyes scanning the hallway for the screaming ghost. In his fourteen years of teaching, he'd gotten very good at reigning in his emotional responses to situations. Right now, however, Daniel was testing that impressive control. It didn't help that there was a ghost still somewhere in the school. "You left my office when there was a _ghost_ around Daniel. You could have gotten seriously hurt – of course I had to come looking for you."

Daniel blinked, taking a small step backwards. "Oh…"

Lancer, however, wasn't really paying much attention. For some reason, his own words were echoing in his mind, teasing him about a fact that he was missing. _You left my office when there was a ghost around_… Then his eyes narrowed as his thoughts caught up with him, momentarily pushing the worry over the ghost to the back of his mind. _You always leave when the ghosts show up – but why?_ "What were you doing?"

"Uh…" Daniel's hand crept up to rub against the back of his neck. "I was…"

"And don't lie to me."

"I was…" The teenager shifted his weight for a moment. "Doing stuff," he finished lamely.

Lancer suppressed the desire to roll his eyes at that answer. "Well, at least it wasn't a lie," he muttered, glancing around the hallway and trying to figure out what to do next. There was still a dangerous ghost in the school.

"Going back to your office?" Daniel asked after a moment.

Lancer was quiet for another moment, turning his head in the direction the shrieks had come from and watching the deserted corridor. "I think we should call your parents," he said, a little tortured by the decision to call those disasters of ghost hunters that never failed to do more harm than good, "there's a ghost loose in the school. Your parents can come catch it."

Daniel was dead silent.

Glancing over at his student, Lancer blinked when he saw the expressions flickering across Daniel's face. They left behind a muddled mess that had the older teacher confused enough to ask, "What?"

"Debating," Daniel muttered. "Which is worse… a ghost or my parents."

Lancer raised an eyebrow with a small grin. He hadn't been aware that Daniel held the same opinion about his parents as he did. But he wasn't going to let a student stay in the school overnight if it was haunted. "Let's head back to my office, we can call them…"

"Or not," Daniel broke in with a small smile. "There's a ghost tracker in Tucker's locker – it'll tell us if the ghost is gone. We haven't heard it in a while, maybe it… left… then we wouldn't have to call my parents." Daniel's voice dropped to a mutter, "And _not _have to deal with them _all_ night, get caught in who-knows-what, go through that new _decontamination sequence_…" he shuddered and fell silent.

Gazing at his student, Lancer silently shook his head. Personally, he could live without having to call the Fentons about a ghost in the middle of the night. Those two were dangerous during the day and it was common knowledge that the two ghost hunters weren't to be called except in dire circumstances. Hostile takeovers, getting sucked into a different dimension, and meat-stealing ghosts were three very good reasons to call in the cavalry. One lone ghost in the middle of the night that might not even be there anymore… He flinched at the thought of how much damage the two of them could do to the school. "We'll have to call them if it's still here," Lancer hedged, still arguing with himself over what to do.

Daniel nodded, twisting around on his heel to head towards Mr. Foley's locker. "You coming?" Daniel asked when Lancer hesitated.

"Yeah," Lancer answered, moving to follow his confusing student. A thought had struck him – one that continued to swirl around in the back of his brain as his feet moved him down the hallway. Why in _Twilight_'s name did _Mr. Foley_ have a ghost tracker in his _locker?_

* * *

_-3:01am_

"See? All clear."

Edward Lancer stared down at the ghost tracker, studying the small screen. It looked like a normal radar – he'd seen them in ships before – with a line that swept around in circles. Tiny spots of light sparkled into life behind the sweeping line and a bright circle of light shown in the middle of the screen. "What are the small dots?"

Daniel leaned over to look at what the teacher was pointing to. "Ghosts, probably," Daniel said. "Little ones. If they're that dim, they can't manifest or anything." He half-grinned. "They're there all the time – like cockroaches and mosquitoes."

"Oh." Lancer waited a moment, watching the line twirl around once more. "Nothing big? You're sure?"

"Yeah. We're fine."

Lancer handed the small ghost radar back to his student, his mind still torn over what they should do. If Daniel was wrong – or the ghost tracker was – and the ghost was still around, he could get in _huge_ trouble. They could be attacked… hurt… even _killed _and no one would realize until Monday. The safest thing to do would be to send Daniel home and try some other way of getting Daniel to talk to them.

_But I'm so close…_ Lancer stared at his student as the boy tried to put the ghost radar back into the over-stuffed locker. _Daniel needs help, that's why everyone agreed to this intervention. Someone needs to get Daniel to talk, and we know he won't talk to some strange psychologist or to his parents. So it all boils down to which is more dangerous to Daniel,_ he thought as he bit his lip, _letting him continue his life as he was or having him spend the rest of the night in a probably-not-haunted school._

Running his hand through his hair, Lancer let a long breath escape through his teeth and made his decision. "Alright, let's head back to my office and get some sleep."

Daniel slammed the door shut and sent him a funny look. "You trust me?"

"Why not? I don't know anything about ghosts."

The boy shrugged, then followed as Lancer headed back to his office.

"Which ghost do you think it was?" Lancer asked conversationally after a few seconds of silence, half-hoping to get Daniel to continue talking and opening up to him.

When there was absolutely no sound coming from behind him – not even footsteps – Lancer twisted around to make sure his student was still following. Daniel was standing a few feet behind his teacher, hands stuffed into the pockets of the pajama pants he was wearing, an unreadable expression on his face. "Why would I know which ghost it was?" Daniel's eyes narrowed slightly as he asked the question.

Lancer raised an eyebrow, wondering at his student's seemingly overblown reaction. "I thought you'd know most of the ghosts," he said, startled. Maddie and Jack Fenton were always naming ghosts and adding to that database of theirs. Lancer had been subjected to more than a few 'discussions' about ghosts after some of the attacks here at school. He would have thought that Daniel would know quite a bit about ghosts – he had to _live_ with those people, after all.

"Why?" Daniel shot at him, his body visibly tensing as he asked the question again. "Why would you think _I'd_ know which ghost it was?"

Hesitating, Lancer studied his young student before answering. "Because of your parents. They've got to talk to you a lot about ghosts, right?" Watching the tension flow out of Daniel at those words, Lancer had to bite his lip to keep the next words inside of him. _That wasn't it. There's some other reason. But what could it be?_

"Yeah, okay," Daniel murmured. "But I don't know which ghost it was."

Lancer was quiet as he started walking again, taking the steps back up to his third floor office slowly. "Do you ever go ghost hunting with your parents?" he asked suddenly, wanting to ask the hundreds of questions floating around in his mind, but knowing that he'd get nowhere with them. He had to find a way to get Daniel to relax a little first.

"Only when I get dragged along," was Daniel's sour answer.

"You don't like it?" Lancer glanced over at Daniel. He'd heard that even Jasmine was getting pulled into the ghost hunting business now that it was a legitimate enterprise – it was a bit of a surprise to find that there was still a Fenton trying to stay out of it.

"My parents' technology likes me," Daniel answered cryptically. "I end up being the only thing that ever gets captured."

Lancer smiled into the darkness, easily imagining Daniel being caught in one of those sticky nets his parents' produced. He'd had the opportunity to be inside of one of them just a few months ago; he could see how the experience would be a bit off-putting. "Why is that, do you think?"

Daniel didn't answer. When Lancer looked at him, the boy's eyes were fixed firmly on the ground and his hair was dangling in his face. Lancer had the distinct feeling that Daniel wasn't going to say anything more, no matter how long he waited. _Now what did I say? _With a shake of his head and a tired sigh, Lancer glanced back up the stairs. _I'm sick of listening to nothing but silence_, he thought sourly, _I wish he'd say something._

Then he blinked, that somewhat-sarcastic thought stirring up a memory from when he was in college. _Their refusal to talk tells you something_, his old psychology teacher had told him, _listen for the quiet as often as you listen to the words. Silence is a cry for aid, an unheard scream of pain and fear. If they don't trust you, they'll lie to you until they're blue in the face to fill the silence with words and cover up their pleas for help. It's only once they start to believe in you that they'll stop answering your questions. It's the first step to getting the truth out of them._

Lancer hesitated on the stairs, surprised and strangely gratified by the fact that Daniel wasn't talking to him. "Thank you," Lancer said, putting a hand softly on his student's shoulder.

Daniel flinched at the contact, his eyes looking up at his teacher suspiciously. "For what? I didn't even answer!"

_For trusting me – finally._ "For not lying to me. I prefer silence over lies any day." Lancer shot a grin at his student.

"Uh… you're welcome?" Daniel arched an eyebrow in confusion. When Lancer, still grinning at his small, strange victory, turned to walk the rest of the way to his office, Daniel continued. "You're weird, you know that?"

Lancer chuckled, knowing that Daniel didn't know why he was smiling so broadly over not getting an answer. "Come on, I want to go back to sleep. We'll talk in the morning."

Daniel followed with a roll of his eyes.

When Lancer finally got to lie down on his cot, his thoughts about Daniel and his worries about ghosts still circled loudly in his brain. He knew that he wasn't going to get any more sleep tonight, no matter what he told Daniel earlier. _Who are you, Daniel Fenton?_

* * *

-_7:03am_

Edward Lancer, with one last glance at his student to make sure he was still asleep, sleepily leaned back in his chair and put his feet up on his desk. He grabbed the keyboard, placed it on his lap, and rearranged the mouse to within easy grabbing distance. The box of dry cereal – the new _Invader O's _(with a special surprise inside!) – was already tipped on its side and waiting for someone to reach a hand inside to grab a fistful.

"Perfect," Lancer mumbled, fighting a yawn over the fact that he hadn't been able to go back to sleep after the ghost scare during the night. This was the time of day he loved the best – early morning, dry cereal ready to be eaten, the news scrolling across the television. Of course, there was no way to watch the news from his office at school, so he had to make do with the online news. He thought it left a bit to be desired; there was no give and take of the announcers, no hidden dynamics to watch, no quiet thrill in waiting for the 'we interrupt this program for a special report!'. But it was still better than nothing.

Snatching a handful of cereal and popping a few of the pieces into his mouth, Lancer navigated through the web to find his favorite news sites. He scrolled through the headlines, looking for stories that would be interesting to read. "Hey, a new movie," he said softly, clicking on the link.

A picture of the 60's superhero Green Lantern appeared on the screen. Lancer raised a skeptical eyebrow at that before skimming through the article. He'd never been a fan of the Green Lantern comics – they'd already been falling out of style when he'd been a kid – and those new live-action superhero movies were always hit or miss. They were either good and memorable or horrible and a waste of film and time.

"What are you reading?"

Lancer jumped, his feet falling off his desk and the keyboard clattering noisily to the floor. Daniel Fenton was standing on the other side of his desk, a small smile on his face. Sending a quick scowl in his student's direction, Lancer picked up the keyboard and set it back on the desk. "News."

Daniel's smile grew a bit. "With your feet up on your desk – which you yell at me all the time for doing, by the way – and eating cereal straight out of the box?" He arched an eyebrow, then reached over to twist the screen so he could see it. "Sweet, a new movie…" After a moment, his gaze switched back to his flustered teacher. "Why are you reading news about a superhero movie?"

"Because it's my computer and I can read what I want," Lancer shot back, turning the screen back to him and clicking out the article. "When'd you get up?"

"Just now." Daniel's eyes were sparkling. "It's like you've got a whole secret life that nobody knew about. Secretly married, secretly like those superhero movies… I bet you even read comics. What else don't we know?"

"We're not here about _my_ secret life," Lancer muttered darkly, grabbing the cereal box and heading over to the laundry basket his wife had dragged up the previous evening. He pulled out the bowls, spoons, and the small cooler with some milk inside. "We're here about _yours._"

His student chuckled softly. "Yeah," he admitted lazily, "but you know nothing about _my_ life and I'm learning a whole basketful of things about _yours._"

"That's not true, you know." Lancer handed a bowl and spoon over to his student before heading back to his desk, already pouring the cereal as he walked. "You're not as great a secret-keeper as you think you are."

Dropping heavily back into his chair, which gave a protesting squeak, Lancer snuck a few last pieces of dry cereal and popped them into his mouth. He started to pour the milk, but paused when he noticed that Daniel was just standing there, staring down into the empty bowl, apparently deep in thought. "What?"

Daniel shook his head, then walked over to sit in the chair opposite his teacher, not saying a word as he carefully picked up the box of cereal to pour himself a bowl full. After he had balanced the bowl on his leg and put the first spoonful of cereal into his mouth, Daniel's eyes drifted back to the wall that he'd spent hours staring at yesterday.

Lancer sighed. "Deja vu," he muttered as he swiped a few more of the milk-free pieces of cereal off the top of his bowl. Yesterday, he knew, had gotten him no closer to figuring out Daniel's secret. He had no doubt that the boy – for whatever reason – would just sit there and stare blankly at the wall all day. _I have to get him to talk to me_. After casting around in his mind for a moment for something to talk about, he said, "Do you like going to those superhero movies?"

Blue eyes focused on him as the teenager crunched his latest mouthful of cereal for a moment. "No," he finally answered.

Lancer waited for more, but silence stretched between them. Kicking himself for asking such a close-ended question when he _knew_ not to do that, the teacher sighed. "Why not?"

"Doesn't seem very realistic to me," Daniel said between spoonfuls of cereal. "Like with Superman – he's got a totally normal life when he's not being Superman. He can just drop everything from his other life without any consequences." Daniel shrugged one of his shoulders. "It's not that I _don't_ like them, it's just…" He trailed off with another shrug.

"I understand, I think," Lancer said. "That's a major flaw in a lot of movies. Directors can't properly convey the all the true issues of real life – or don't want to – so they just ignore them." Lancer leaned back in his chair, taking another bite of cereal. "That's one of the reasons I like books better."

Daniel made a non-committal sound around his mouthful of cereal.

"Must be hard for those superheroes," Lancer continued slowly as a train of thought coalesced in his mind, carefully stringing together his words before he said them, "keeping all those secrets. You think?"

His student nodded after a moment.

"I'd get them all mixed up, if it were me," Lancer laughed a little. "I'd never remember what I told who. It would probably drive me nuts to have to live two lives."

Daniel snorted, his head bobbing in what looked like a cut-off nod of agreement.

Lancer nodded his head silently for a moment, fighting to keep himself from jumping on that. His words had to come out perfectly neutral and uninterested. "It must be hard for you, too," he said levelly, "to keep all of your 'masks' straight."

Tensing a bit, Daniel shrugged. "It's not so hard," he muttered.

"I just don't get it," the teacher said, trying to keep his tone nonchalant. He took another bite of his cereal and tried to fix an indifferent expression on his face. "Why would someone go to all the trouble to create four different masks?"

Daniel stirred his almost-empty bowl of cereal, then shrugged again.

"Or three, really," Lancer murmured, almost to himself. "One's really_ you_ hidden in there. The other three…"

"Can't I just go home?" Daniel suddenly asked, looking up. "I told you about me – I told you what my problem was. _Now_ I get to go home and we can forget this whole stupid thing, right?"

Lancer quietly shook his head. "I want to help you, Daniel. I need to know _why_ you're doing this."

Daniel breathed out heavily and took another bite of his cereal, slouching back in the chair. "I don't _want_ to tell you."

Nodding quietly, Lancer watched Daniel finish his cereal. "Those superheroes in the movies," Lancer finally said, "they trust people."

"I trust people," Daniel muttered darkly, shifting awkwardly to pick up his cereal bowl with the same hand he was holding his spoon in and set it on Lancer's desk.

"Like who?" Lancer asked distractedly. His eyebrows furrowed as he watched Daniel a bit more closely. Why was he only moving his right arm around? Had he been doing that all morning?

The boy settled back into the chair, his left arm carefully not touching the chair. "Sam, Tucker, Jazz…" he trailed off. "I trust people."

"Daniel, is there something wrong with your arm?" Lancer asked suddenly, concern flaring in his mind. "Did you get hurt last night?"

"No," Daniel answered quickly, twisting a little bit to get his arm – the one he hadn't used to do anything all morning – more out of Lancer's sight.

_Yes, he is,_ Lancer's mind was swirling around in circles. _He got hurt last night. _Tiny bits of thoughts and memories were clicking into place. _He disappeared when the ghost was here. The ghost vanished when he showed back up. He got nervous when I asked him which ghost it was… almost like he knew which ghost it was. But how would he? Unless he saw it…_

_He saw it… he had to have been by the ghost… that's how he got hurt... he was by the ghost..._

_Is he just as interested in ghosts as his parents?_

"That's what you were doing last night," Lancer breathed. "You went _looking _for that ghost."

Daniel shook his head in denial, but Lancer gritted his teeth and pressed forwards, convinced that he was right even though he didn't have much evidence to proove it. It was a gut feeling. "Your arm is hurt, Daniel. And that's…" another piece clicking into place in his head, "and that's where you sneak off to during school, isn't it? Why you're never around when there's a ghost attack. You go to watch the ghosts. Daniel…"

"Quit it!" the boy interrupted, his eyes almost glowing. "Stop. I'm not… I don't…" But he trailed off, unable to finish his denial.

"Yes, _yes_ you do." Lancer leaned over to touch Daniel's arm. The boy flinched away from him. "Why is being interested in ghosts something you need to hide? What happened to the ghost last…"

"I _can't_…" He breathed out sharply. "Just, _stop_. I don't want to talk about it."

"Daniel…"

"Stop, _please_."

"Danny…" Lancer's voice was pleading. He knew he was close to the truth; this kind of reaction was proof.

"You don't know anything _about_ me," Daniel said, anger and frustration and more than a little bit of fear suddenly bubbling over into his voice as he shot a glare in Lancer's direction and hunched up in his chair. "So just… shut up. I don't _need your help._"

Lancer stared at him for a long moment, before shaking his head and deciding to just let Daniel sit and brood. The boy would probably get up and run if Lancer pressed the issue any more. In fact, Lancer was a little surprised that Daniel… Danny… hadn't tried to leave yet. _Maybe that's just a sign of how much he really wants you to figure this out._ _But he's scared… scared of what? What doesn't he want me to figure out? Liking ghosts isn't enough to cause all of this…_

_What is the big secret behind this? All I've got are pieces. Ghosts are such a small clue… He's almost paranoid about protecting the fact that he's actually interested in ghosts. But why?_

He sighed and turned away, deciding that trying to figure Daniel out without more information would be an exercise in futility. Turning to his computer, he clicked into his email program to check the notes that had appeared over the night. Still distracted by his student and wondering what in _Oliver Twist'_s name ghosts had to do with Daniel, he scanned his inbox. Three pieces of junk mail, a forward from his brother that probably shouldn't be opened at school, a good morning email from Bella, and the obligatory cc'd email from Paulina making sure he knew about the 'Phantom Phans' club meeting after school on Monday. "_Come and talk about the latest about Danny P…"_ the chopped-off subject line announced.

Lancer's eyes drifted to the crumbled notes Daniel have given him the night before. One of them was labeled with a simple 'P'. Daniel P. His eyes shot back to the screen. _Danny P…_

Lancer laughed softly at the coincidence, already shuffling the half-thought out of his head as stupidly unrealistic. If they hadn't have been talking about superheroes with 'secret lives' over breakfast, he probably wouldn't have made the jump at all. Superheroes don't really exist and common-sense Lancer knew that all too well. The thought that the boy sitting in front of him was some sort of part-human, part-ghost creature that regularly saved the town, and the _world_, was ludicrous to a whole new degree. It was something out of a sci-fi novel or comic book.

But a small piece of him – the tiny corner of Lancer's mind that still enjoyed gaming and hiding comic books behind his copy of '_How to Sound Hip for the Unhip_' – wondered it just long enough and just loud enough that it slipped out from between his lips, even though the vast majority of Lancer's mind had already discarded the idea as crazy. "Danny… Phantom?"


	4. Masks: The Way Out

_They were, in the end, merely masks; they covered up the true being inside.  
_ _It hid a boy that had been tortured by one of the only people on the planet that  
_ _would have ever truly understood him. A boy that feared his own shadow and his  
_ _own future. A mere child whose free will had been ripped from him as he had  
_ _been forced to do things he hated. A young man that was hunted by those who  
_ _should have cared for him the most. A creature that wasn't really human… wasn't  
_ _really a ghost… and didn't quite understand everything that happened around him._

* * *

_-7:21am_

Edward Lancer chuckled softly to himself, shaking his head at the thought. Danny Phantom – the famous ghost of Amity Park – and Danny Fenton: what a strange combination. Aside from the rather obvious similarities in name and appearance, the two couldn't have been more different: one was brave and cocky, willing to do just about anything since his 'life' wasn't on the line and the other was shy, quiet, and ran away at the slightest hint of anything supernatural. The two of them having anything in common? He couldn't believe the thought had managed to germinate in his head. Lancer was usually more down-to-Earth than that.

Allowing himself a mental eye roll at the strange ideas he was having and chalking the whole thing up to a lack of sleep, Lancer clicked onto his wife's email. He skimmed through it for a moment, grinning slightly at her good morning wishes before a small flutter on his desk caught his eye – the pieces of paper Daniel had given him earlier shifting in a slight breeze.

Lancer blinked, having almost forgotten about them. They'd been Daniel's way of trying to get his attention, trying to tell him what was wrong. Lancer's eyes narrowed a little as he contemplated the crumpled bits of paper. Everyone in the world had different faces and different masks that they showed to the world. Daniel had just taken it to an extreme.

_Why?_ That was the question circling around in Lancer's head. Daniel's sister, Jasmine, knew about this strange facet to the teenager's personality as well, apparently. Lancer sighed softly as that idea bloomed in his mind. _She had to have known in order to get him to make these._ But she either didn't think it was too big a concern or she didn't know the extent of it.

_Daniel…_ Lancer reached over and picked them up, shuffling them around to read them. It was obvious to the overweight teacher that his student was terrified of him finding out the answers to his questions. Daniel didn't _want_ anyone to know what was wrong… or at least that's what he continued to say. His actions said otherwise, Lancer figured. Daniel hadn't gotten up to leave, hadn't walked out, hadn't come up with a handful of lies like he usually did. It was just as obvious, at least to the teacher, that Daniel _wanted_ him to figure it out. Too many clues had been dropped, too many half-spoken ideas, too many frustrated hours of silence.

For some reason, Daniel either didn't want or didn't know how to tell him. It was up to Lancer to set his mind to the task and figure it out.

A small grin flickered onto his face as he smoothed out one of the pieces of paper. He'd always been a bit of a fan of mysteries. _What in _A New Earth_'s name would get you this scared? It can't just be that ghost hunting thing – your parents do that and I'm sure you wouldn't hide it from them if it were simply that. This has definitely got something to do with ghosts and the supernatural though, that much I know for sure. What would cause you to want to hide something from your parents and then stick with your secret so strongly that you'd be willing to spend all weekend with me?_

_And it's not just that…_ Lancer sighed softly. _Why would you create these different masks? What does that gain you?_

The thrill of having a mystery to solve had faded almost as quickly as it had arrived. This wasn't some book, or some story, or some movie. This was a _real _teenager he was dealing with. _Can I figure this out or should I just give this up and turn this whole thing over to a psychologist – a _real_ one? Daniel's obviously got some serious problems and I'm not anywhere near qualified to deal with it. It's just… I wish he'd talk to me. I've gotten so much out of him already; he could tell me more. I know he can._

F.  
-clumsy  
-shy  
-nervous  
-stupid  
-scared  
-loser

P.  
-brave  
-strong  
-powerful  
-heroic  
-risk-taker

_But why? Why make one 'mask' brave and cocky and one quiet and shy?_ Lancer froze as his own thoughts led him in a circle. _Wait a minute…_

…_Aside from the rather obvious similarities in name and appearance, the two couldn't have been more different. Phantom was brave and cocky, willing to do just about anything since his 'life' wasn't on the line. Daniel was shy and quiet and ran away at the slightest hint of anything supernatural_…

_No way, that can't be. Can it? The coincidence…_

"Danny…?" Looking up, Lancer stared straight at the chair that held his most confusing student, a question bubbling on his lips. _Do you _really _have something to do with Phantom?_

Or, at least the chair _used_ to hold him. It was empty. In fact, there was no one else in the room besides himself. Daniel was gone.

* * *

_-8:19am_

Lancer was starting to get worried. It'd been nearly an hour since Daniel had disappeared mysteriously from his office and there was still no sign of the teenager. He'd been all over the school, checking in almost every room – _again_ – but hadn't found a hint of life. Add that to the fact that Lancer was slowly becoming more convinced that Danny _Fenton_ and Danny _Phantom_ were somehow connected, and Lancer was getting very concerned about his student.

It made an insane sort of sense – something impossible and right out of a comic book, but it explained too much to be ignored. Phantom was a powerful ghost, hunted by most of the living world _and_ the ghost world. He also vanished without a trace on a daily basis. Hiding inside of a human was a theory that had come up multiple times over the past few months to explain where Phantom vanished to. No one had ever been able to prove it, however. And even though search had ended up nowhere, the rather popular theory persisted.

_Phantom… hiding in Daniel? _If Daniel was trying to somehow protect Phantom, it would explain quite a bit. It'd explain the disappearance last night – Daniel was helping Phantom. It'd explain why he didn't want to tell his parents. It'd explain the fear of his parents knowing about his ghost hunting. It'd even explain the various masks. Daniel Fenton had garnered a reputation over the past year as being one of the clumsiest and least-like-Phantom people at school.

One mask that _was_ Phantom, one mask that was Daniel trying to hide the fact that Phantom was inside of him, and one mask for when he was around his friends – they must have known about Phantom for a long time and he could be more like himself. And then there was the fourth personality… Daniel's _real_ personality. Something hidden from everyone in the world.

But _why_? Why would Daniel hide his own personality from _everyone?_

Lancer stepped into the gymnasium, his eyes sweeping the morning shadows in search of a Daniel-shaped form. He gritted his teeth in frustration when he saw nothing. Adding to the complexity of this search was the fact that Phantom (if he really _was _inside of Daniel) might have turned both of them invisible. The boy could be following him around and Lancer would never know it.

He sighed loudly and turned to leave. There were thousands of questions flooding through Lancer's mind, but there was only one thing that _needed_ to be answered. Was Daniel _allowing_ Phantom to be part of him or was Phantom controlling him somehow? Was the whole situation a choice on Daniel's part or not?

The thought that Phantom could be forcing Daniel to help him left a sour taste in Lancer's mouth as he stalked across the gym towards the doors leading into the other half of the school. If Phantom were somehow controlling Daniel – had such a power over the boy that Daniel was afraid of everyone finding out – Lancer's off-the-cuff realization could have put the boy at risk. Phantom might have been keeping Daniel safe only as long as their partnership _remained_ a secret. Daniel could be in very serious trouble.

Of course, Lancer didn't think that Phantom was _really_ all that evil, not after all was said and done. But Phantom was a ghost, and ghosts were notorious for doing whatever benefited them at the moment – often at the expense of the human population around them. There was the very real possibility that Phantom could be hurting Daniel and either not know or not care.

His fingers closed around the door leading to the other hallway, but some instinct Lancer couldn't name tickled the back of his neck and he hesitated, turning around. It was almost like he was missing something. On not much more than a whim, he looked up into the shadowed rafters.

"Daniel," he whispered when he saw a slim figure lounging about half-way across the gym, sitting on a beam dozens of feet above the ground.

The figure moved, glancing down towards the teacher almost like he'd heard his name being called. For a long moment Lancer held still, staring up at his student, wondering what to do next. Was Daniel stuck up there? Could he get down? Lancer was trying to remember if he knew where the ladder was kept when Daniel abruptly vanished.

Taking a startled step forwards, Lancer opened his mouth to call out to his student, but Daniel simply materialized in front of him. One second there was nothing, the next second a pair of blue eyes were staring straight at him, annoyance apparent in his expression. "What?" the boy asked sourly.

"How did…" Lancer's eyes flickered from the rafters back to Daniel's face. Then he shook his head, tossing the question out of his mind. _I was right… Phantom just made him vanish… and… fly? No. Don't think about it, Edward, or you'll drive yourself crazy. Get back to what you need to know. Think it through later. Come on, you can do it. _"Are you okay?"

Daniel blinked, his forehead furrowing in confusion. "What?" he asked again, this time with less frustration in his voice.

"Are you okay?" Lancer repeated firmly, focusing fiercely on making sure his student wasn't in any danger from Phantom and not allowing himself to think about anything else. "You're not hurt?"

A small, hesitant smile flickered across Daniel's face. "No, I'm fine," he said after a moment. "Why?"

Lancer relaxed a little, even though a small part of his mind wondered if Daniel was telling him the truth. "I was worried," Lancer said. "You disappeared on me."

"Sorry." Daniel studied him for a moment. "Are _you_ okay, Mr. Lancer? You look… pale."

With a nod, Lancer sighed. He was so confused by what was going on he _felt_ pale. But Daniel was safe, at least. _He's okay. But now what do I do?_ The teacher gazed at his student dazedly for a moment before coming to a decision. _Buy yourself some time to get your mind around this and come up with a plan. _"I'm going back to my office. May I remind you, Daniel, that you can't leave the school until you explain what in _The Lord of the Ring_'s name is going on." Turning on his heal, Lancer started down the hallway.

"That's it?" Daniel's voice was incredulous.

Lancer didn't turn around; he just nodded. _I hope I'm doing the right thing._ "When you're ready to talk, I'm ready to listen. Until then, I'll wait."

When his feet hit the stairs leading him back up to his office, Lancer allowed himself to stop and close his eyes, the full enormity of that short conversation crashing down on him. _I was right. I… was right. That's… Phantom and Fenton – in the same person. What do I do now?_

_Oh, God… What do I do now?_

* * *

_-11:12am_

It had been nearly three hours since Edward Lancer had found his student hiding in the rafters of the gymnasium. Three hours of chewing his fingernails and staring at the computer screen, not reading a word. He was, if his mind would stop whirling around in circles long enough to realize it, driving himself crazy.

His fingers strayed over to the phone for the nineteenth time, tapping gently against the handset. _I should call the Fentons. But what would I tell them? I don't know anything._ His hand slowly retreated, confused energy making him pick up a pencil and twirl it back and forth. _Daniel and Phantom – how did that ever happen, anyways? How come the Fentons never picked up on it? Don't they have all that ghost hunting stuff?_

_This is so unfair._ Lancer struggled with that thought for a moment before letting it wash over his mind. _Why did I have to be the one to figure this out? Why couldn't it have been someone else? What am I supposed to do about this?_

With nothing but questions circling around in his mind, Lancer could do nothing but wait for Daniel to show up. He'd tried to come up with some sort of logical _reason_ for Daniel and Phantom's partnership, but he really didn't have enough information. It hadn't taken more than a few minutes for him to realize that endless conjecturing and theorizing wasn't going to get him anywhere. Until he knew some basic information, all he could do was wonder and wait.

_Danny Fenton and Danny Phantom. My student is collaborating with the town's hero-bent poltergeist. Never in a million years would I have guessed _that.

The knock on the door startled him. For a brief instant, Lancer wondered who it could be, then mentally smacked his head. "Come in, Daniel." He quickly arranged his face into something other than the confused expression he'd been wearing for the past three hours and steepled his fingers, taking a deep breath. _Be calm, be cool. Listen. Don't just… oh, _The Picture of Dorian Gray.

_Phantom_ walked straight through the door and stood on the other side of the office, his effervescent emerald eyes glittering in the soft shadows. He wasn't really _standing_, since his feet weren't touching the ground, but it was probably as close to standing as the ghost could come.

Lancer pressed his fingers against his mouth and visibly swallowed down the questions that were about to jump out of him. He just quirked an eyebrow instead, inviting the ghost to talk. _The world's most powerful ghost – who just happens to hide inside one of my students – is in my office. Phantom is in _my_ office. _Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants_… what have I gotten myself in to? Where's Daniel?_

Taking a few 'steps' forwards, Phantom licked his lips. "See," he said quickly, "I've never had to explain this before, so I'm not sure what to say." He broke off, his eyes drifting around the room.

Lancer, still not trusting himself to speak, gestured with his hand towards the chair Daniel had vacated.

"I'm…" Phantom paused for a moment as a strange light appeared around his hand. It bubbled and fizzled, Phantom's skin seeming to evaporate away in the air. Lancer watched in confusion (and a little fear) as the light enveloped Phantom in a set of what looked like rings. When it died away, Daniel dropped to the ground, the supernatural light of Phantom's eyes still glittering in his blue gaze for a moment before it died away. "…Phantom," he concluded.

Lancer was glad his fingers were pressed against his lips – otherwise his mouth would have dropped open. _What… the… _Inwardly, his stomach was clenching and his mind was writhing in confusion. Outwardly, he just continued to gaze at his student. _Daniel… Phantom… Danny… They're… How?_

Daniel shifted his weight on his feet, sliding into the chair. "I got into an accident in my parents' lab when I was fourteen. Remember – I was out of school for a few days?" He smiled a little, his grin fading when Lancer didn't return it. His teacher was too confused to try for any facial expression other than his current blank one. "I got zapped by my parents' ghost portal; I was inside it when it turned on. Ectoplasm got superglued to my DNA… I'm kind of a half-ghost or something."

It took a moment of silence, but Lancer finally eased his fingers away from his lips. "So, you and Phantom are one person." It wasn't really a question, but Daniel nodded anyways. _That doesn't make any sense, _Lancer groused to himself. _How can Daniel – _my_ clumsy, peaceful, caring Daniel – be the fighter that saved all of Amity Park?_

"See," Daniel pushed himself back out of the chair, nervously grabbing those small pieces of paper off of Lancer's desk. "These are me – well, parts of me. Fenton," he said, holding out the paper with an 'F', "Phantom," he added, digging out the one labeled 'P', "and Danny," he finished, the paper with a 'D' being set on top of them. He shuffled them between his fingers anxiously. "I don't want anyone to know. _Please_, Mr. Lancer, I don't know how you figured it out but you _can't_ tell anybody. I'll be _dissected_ or experimented on or something."

Lancer continued to stare at his student. _He's Phantom. _It still didn't make a whole lot of sense in his mind, but Lancer was willing to roll with it for the moment. Glancing down at the papers Daniel was fiddling with, Lancer gave a small start of realization. _And he's trying to hide who he is – thus the personalities. One clumsy, shy one to cover up for the heroic one and one that's a complete opposite so that no one would be able to connect them together._

Finally he just shook his head, amazed, letting small pieces slide into place in his mind. Daniel was a _ghost_, no wonder he was afraid of people finding out. And the savior of Amity Park at that; from what Lancer could remember of the boy he'd taught in sixth grade, no doubt Daniel wasn't looking for the attention that would bring him. That's where Daniel ran off to all the time and that's why he seemed 'afraid' of the ghosts. Daniel… Phantom… had fought off the ghost the previous night – and had gotten hurt.

"Uh… Mr. Lancer?" Daniel asked softly, shifting uncomfortably in his chair under the teacher's gaze. "Can you say something?"

Lancer just sat back in his chair and blinked a few times, still letting everything sink in. _Daniel Phantom. It fits. That is so…_

"How… How'd you figure it out?" Daniel stuttered anxiously, obviously trying to get his teacher to break his silence.

Allowing a small smile to appear on his face, Lancer finally found his tongue. By staying this quiet, not saying anything, he was scaring his student and that wasn't what Lancer wanted. "Figure what out?" Lancer managed to say, his voice sounding a lot calmer than he had expected it to be. _I'm having a conversation with Phantom… Daniel…_

"That I'm Phantom."

_What makes you think I figured it out? _"I didn't," Lancer murmured. "I didn't know until you told me a minute ago."

Daniel stared at him in disbelief, his fingers slowly turning white as his hands clenched tighter and tighter around the arms of the chair. "B… b… b… but…"

Lancer turned his computer monitor around, showing the boy his email program. "Email from Paulina about her club. I just noticed the similarities in the name." He swiveled the monitor back around. "I didn't even figure it out when you disappeared on me – or when I found you in the gym. I thought that Phantom was hiding inside of you, controlling you, or something. I never would have thought…" He trailed off, shaking his head. "I'm still not sure what to think."

"I'm still me, I'm still Danny, I'm not different from who I was yesterday and last week," the teenager said quickly. "I'm not a monster or a ghost and I'm _really _not evil. And… and… _please _don't tell anyone. I don't _want_ to be famous," Daniel answered, a little pale. "I don't like being followed around. And I _really_ don't want to be thrown in a lab or something as a guinea pig."

Lancer's mouth twitched up into a smile. _The only reason you told me is because you thought I'd figured it out already? How long would we have sat here if I hadn't said anything aloud? There's no way I ever would have figured it out on my own. It's just too bizarre to be real. _"I'm not going to let you get thrown in a lab," Lancer said softly. "Why would you think that?"

Daniel's mouth moved silently a few times. "Uh… Because?" His eyes shifted, glancing up and away from his teacher.

Lancer let his mouth move with his thoughts, too dazed and amazed to really think through what he was saying. There was no way what he was thinking could be possible, but it slipped out anyways. "Because… someone else found out and threw you in a lab?" Daniel's flinch caught Lancer's attention. The teacher sat up straighter, stunned at this curve ball. "Someone _experimented on you?_"

"Only a little," Daniel whispered, shrinking back in his chair. "You know, a little bit of cloning and mind control and stuff like that. It's no big deal."

"_Mind control_?" Lancer breathed. _No wonder you're scared of me figuring it out. _"Daniel… I'm not going to turn you over to anyone. I'm not going to let anyone hurt you – I want to _help_ you. You need to trust me."

The look on Daniel's face said, very clearly, _been there, done that._

"These, I get," Lancer said, leaning towards his student to grab the three pieces of paper out of Daniel's hand. "Strangely, they make sense. These are creations, masks, _personalities_ that you've created to hide who you are from the world. Phantom to be the hero and take on the world, Fenton to hide behind the rest of the time, Danny to your friends…" He picked up the forgotten fourth piece of paper, the simple 'Me' scrawled across the top. "But _why_ are you hiding who _you_ are? From everyone – even the few people who knew that you were Phantom?"

Daniel stared at the paper. "I…" he trailed off. He shook his head, fingers still clamped tightly onto the edge of the chair.

Lancer felt a stab of fear that the boy would shut back down and stop talking. He had to do something to get Daniel to say something. "Daniel." Lancer got out of his chair and walked around the desk, crouching down next to the chair Daniel had collapsed into. His knees ached, but the teacher ignored it. "I can't even begin to tell you that I understand everything you're saying. You've got a whole world locked up in your head – it's going to take a long time to figure it out." He looked into Daniel's eyes. "Ghosts… portals… half-ghost?"

The teenager nodded, then looked away.

"But I _want _to help you." Lancer dropped the pieces of paper into his student's lap. "I don't want to help some mask – Daniel or Fenton or Phantom or whoever – I want to help _you_. To do that, I need to know who _you_ are." He was quiet for a moment, letting that sink in. "I need to know why you're hiding yourself from the world."

As he levered himself to his feet, Lancer silently congratulated himself on that tear-jerker of a speech he'd come up with on the fly. He didn't know if it would get anything accomplished, but it was a good attempt.

"The ghosts try to kill me," Daniel whispered just after Lancer dropped back into his seat. The teacher glanced up at him and waited. "Every day I wake up, knowing that the ghosts are going to attack me and anyone close to me, with the intent to murder people. Do you have any idea what that feels like? And my _parents_." Daniel broke off with a morose chuckle. "They don't really mean it, and they're not really dangerous, but they _hunt me too!_ They won't give me the time of day, even though I'm their _son_. And the one person that could _really _understand what I'm going through locked me in a_ box_ the first time we met."

"You know what's worse?" Daniel looked up at his teacher, his eyes gleaming. "I cheat on a test – _one stupid test_ – and I don't just get in trouble like anyone else would. No, my whole _family_ ends up _dead_ and I go crazy. I killed thousands of people, you know that? I had to _watch _as my family…" He stopped suddenly, changing directions. "I _know_ what happened, I _know_ what I could do if I wanted, and I have to live with that."

"It hurts, sometimes," Daniel breathed, finally getting his fingers free from his death-grip on the chair and wrapping them around himself, fixing his eyes out the window. "I'm… alone, you know? I've seen things and done things that nobody should have to do. And I have to show up at school the next day with a smile on my face. I… pretend, I guess, that it doesn't bother me. That I'm stronger then that."

Lancer nodded slowly, not even beginning to process what his student was saying. It was all too much to take in all at once. All he could do was go with the few facts he _did_ understand. "But why do you hide that from people? From Sam and Tucker, and Jazz? They could help you."

Daniel's eyes dropped to the ground. "They're just teenagers," he whispered. "I can't take that from them."

"Innocence can't be reclaimed once it's lost," Lancer said softly.

With a slow nod, Daniel crossed his arms and sank into the chair a little deeper. "I killed people, Mr. Lancer, and I've watched my family die. Every other person I run into on a daily basis wants to kill _me_. I live with it – they don't have to."

Lancer sighed, leaning forwards on his desk and staring at his student. His somehow-half-ghost student, whose life was beginning to make a sort of sickening sense. The poor boy: burying his entire life in a cocoon of lies and half-truths, hiding the truth from the whole world, unwilling to burden the only people who knew his perilous secret. "You're scared."

"Not really," Daniel answered softly. "I got over being scared. You can't be scared every day and not learn to live with it."

"I'm sorry, Danny," Lancer said, "I should have locked you in here a year ago."

Daniel glanced up at him.

Lancer pressed on. "I don't understand a lot of things, but I do know that you _can't_ keep doing this." When Daniel's eyes narrowed and his mouth opened to protest, Lancer held up a hand. "Wait, hear me out, please." In a fit of maturity that no sixteen-year-old should have possessed, Daniel shut his mouth and nodded. Lancer looked up at the ceiling, arranging his words in his mind. "We're all worried about you, Danny. We all noticed that there's something wrong, we just couldn't figure out what it was. Even your friends know you're hiding something from them."

"I'm fine," Daniel whispered.

With a sigh, Lancer shook his head. "You're not. You're about to fall apart, Daniel, even if you don't realize it. You can't keep three or four different personalities up in the air. You can't hide your real thoughts and fears like you've been doing. You _can't live like that._"

Daniel was silent, staring at the ground.

"You know it too, don't you," Lancer said. He scraped around in his head for things he had been taught decades earlier, symptoms of the stress he was sure his student was under. "I doubt you've been sleeping well. You haven't been eating much, I know _that _for a fact. You've gotten sick a lot recently." He bit his lip. "Daniel... Danny… you're just losing that spark you used to have."

"I remember," Lancer continued, "a sixth grader who I really enjoyed having in my class. You loved life, Danny. You wanted to be an astronaut, even back then. You pestered me with questions about astronomy every single day." A small smile flickered onto the teacher's face. "You weren't the best student, but you had something special about you. When you walked into my class in ninth grade _it was still there_. Then… it vanished."

"All of ninth grade I watched you, Danny. I knew something was wrong way back in the first quarter, but I didn't know what to do about it. You started to unravel right in front of my eyes. You'd vanish without any sort of explanation, your grades slipped..." _I should have done something way back then. I failed you, Danny, and I'm sorry._ "I could see your friends worry about you and I kept fielding phone calls from your parents, wondering what was going on with you." Lancer's voice dropped to soft tone. "I listened," _all I did was listen_, "as they told me about you disappearing at night, and skipping curfew, and always looking like you were about to fall asleep at the table."

Lancer shook his head slowly. "You're _not_ fine. You can't keep hiding your entire life from the world."

Daniel crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes stubbornly, continuing to stare off into the distance.

"And that's why you haven't run away from me," Lancer finished quietly. "You want someone to talk to. You know you're grinding yourself into dust."

"_I can't_," Daniel whispered, so softly Lancer could barely hear him. "I can't explain everything, not now. It's easier…"

"We're not going to go away. You're going to wake up tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that, and we're still going to be here." He was silent for a moment. "The sad truth is it's _never_ going to be easy – and the longer you wait the harder it'll be."

"I don't want them to know everything."

Lancer nodded. "I know."

"How do you think they're going to take it, huh?" Danny looked at him, arching an eyebrow. "'Hey, Mom, you've been trying to kill me for a year.' Yeah, that's going to go over smooth. She's never going to get over that. _Decades _of therapy can't erase that. I can't…"

"What do Sam, Tucker, and Jazz think?" Lancer asked.

Daniel shrugged. "I haven't talked about it in awhile. They just… accept it, I guess. They used to want me to tell them."

Lancer took a deep breath. "Do you _want_ to tell them?"

Silence was his answer. "I don't want to put them through-"

"That's not what I asked," Lancer interrupted. "Stop thinking about everyone else for a minute and think just about yourself. Do _you_ want to tell them?"

"Some days." Daniel went back to staring at the wall. "Sometimes I wonder what it'd be like, if they knew."

Unable to think of anything more to say, Lancer stared at his student for a long, quiet moment. _This is out of my league. Danny Phantom… what do I do with you? What happens next?_

"Now what?" Daniel asked, copying Lancer's thoughts aloud.

"Honestly," Lancer said slowly, "I'm not sure. There is one thing I know for sure, though."

Daniel looked up, a question in his eyes, suspicion sparkling. No doubt he was thinking Lancer was about to pick up the phone and call his parents. _Not in a million years_, Lancer thought with a morose chuckle, _would I touch that hornet's nest over the phone. _Lancer took a deep breath. "You told me what was wrong. You're free to go home, if you want."

* * *

_-12:38pm_

Edward Lancer pulled into the Nasty Burger, his silent student in the passenger seat. _Only 21 hours. I'm impressed – I thought it'd take all weekend to get anything out of him. _He stared at the boy for a long moment, still amazed at what he'd learned. _Danny Phantom. My student's a hero… and a ghost. I'm not sure I'll ever get over that. _"Lunch?" he asked quietly.

Daniel shrugged, but unbuckled his seat belt and got out of the car.

Lancer watched him slam the door shut and head towards the front doors of the small fast food restaurant with a sigh. Daniel hadn't said a word since the teacher had asked him if he wanted to go home. Faced with the prospect of uncountable hours more of silence waiting for an answer – followed by another night on those horrendous torture devices the school laughingly called 'cots' – Lancer had made the decision for him. The two of them would go out for lunch. It wasn't school, it wasn't home: neutral ground, maybe. The cots had been lugged back to the storeroom, their supplies had been packed up, and Daniel had silently gotten into the car.

The teacher wasn't going to press his student for an answer. Daniel was smart, Lancer knew that, and the boy understood exactly what his decision would mean. He could go home, but his parents would need an explanation. The 'intervention' was obviously over… so what had the problem been?

Going home meant facing the truth. Going home meant explaining. Going home meant...

"I don't know what to say to them," Daniel said abruptly, turning around, his hand on the door that would lead them into the Nasty Burger.

"The truth is a good place to start."

Daniel shook his head. "I mean…" he hesitated. "I don't know what I mean, I guess. I just… I don't know what to say."

Lancer pushed past his student, walking into the Nasty Burger. "Well, that's a good thing to talk about over lunch. Maybe I can help – I'm pretty good at talking."

"Yeah, you are," Daniel muttered softly. "You can just go on and on…"

With a raised eyebrow, Lancer chose to ignore the teenager's small attempt at humor. It was a good sign. "What do you want? My treat."

"A number three is fine."

As Lancer went up to order their food, Daniel found a booth in one of the far corners. Lancer watched him out of the corner of his eye as he paid and waited, biting his lip a little. _That's going to be a hell of a conversation. How _is_ he going to start that one?_

When he finally placed the trays onto the table, Daniel was quietly staring out the window. "Question," Lancer said suddenly, making his student jump, "what _were_ you staring at on my wall all that time?"

"What?" Daniel blinked at him in surprise.

"I'm just curious – you stared at the wall of my office for hours yesterday. What were you staring at? Was there a ghost there or something?"

"No." Daniel laughed a little, his eyes shifting down to the baskets of steaming fries. "It was just a wall."

Lancer shuffled into the booth. "Are you telling me the truth?"

Daniel glanced up, a ghost of a smile on his face, but didn't answer.

The teacher huffed. _That_ _is going to bug me for the rest of my life, Daniel. _"So…"

"So… what?" Daniel repeated, coating a fry in an insane amount of ketchup and popping it into his mouth.

"I'm your guinea pig," Lancer said. "What are you going to tell your parents? Practice it on me – I'll tell you what doesn't make sense. And I'll learn a bit more about you on the way."

Daniel looked up, his normally blue eyes glittering with an internal, supernatural light. There was an aura around him, shimmering like a million rainbows and vanishing like the heat smears above a hot tar road. Pure _potential _stared into the teacher's eyes: power cascaded and glimmered, folded and rolled. Life and death hung on a precipice, teetering, impossibly balanced for an eternity on the razor's edge of the afterlife.

"I'm a human… and a ghost," Daniel Phantom said softly, his voice twisting into Lancer's mind and echoing quietly.

_No more masks,_ Edward Lancer thought with an amazed smile. _This is him. This is _really_ him. _There was no backing down, no turning away, no hiding behind his desk. He'd helped dig out the real Daniel hidden under the masks and, for better or for worse, he was now a part of Daniel's crazy half-ghost life. _This is… _A Series of Unfortunate Events…_ what have I gotten myself in to?_

"And this is my story."


	5. Plunge 1

-4:31pm

"You have to tell them."

The Nasty Burger was bustling with life, but the area around the table populated by Danny Fenton and his teacher was almost supernaturally quiet. Danny slouched a bit farther down in his chair and mopped up a few lost salt crystals off his tray with a finger. "I know, I know," he muttered.

Edward Lancer nodded, picking at the fries on his tray that had gone cold hours previously. "I'm sorry, Daniel. I just can't think of a way…"

The teenager kicked at a table leg, his stomach twisting painfully, threatening to let him see his lunch for a second time. "They're never going to be the same," he whispered.

"I know you don't want things to change," Lancer said, "but they have to. You can't handle everything without some outside help." He was silent for a moment. "Everything changes, Daniel. That's the nature of life."

Danny swallowed heavily and didn't answer. The two of them had already been over this at least a half-dozen times in the four hours they had been sitting at this table. Every plan, every excuse, every attempt to try to prevent what was about to happen had come up empty. His teacher had methodically sunk every one of his arguments with devastating and unerring force.

The worst part of the whole deal was the fact that Danny really didn't care about what would happen to himself when he told his family that he was Phantom. He was pretty sure they would accept him and even try to help; he'd be just fine. It was his parents that he was worried about. Both of them would never be able to forgive themselves for what they'd done to him, even if they didn't know it was him.

He could tick the issues off on his fingers without any trouble: death threats, shooting at him, trapping him, hunting him, not knowing who he was, not noticing his problems, not figuring it out sooner, physically and mentally scarring him, plans to experiment on him… he ran out of fingers and stumbled to a depressed halt in his mind.

No, they would never be able to forgive what they had done to him. It would hurt them, slice them open from the inside out, kill them just as effectively as his alternate-future self had. He would lose them – if not physically, then mentally.

He had to admit that there weren't many other options. Now that Lancer knew his secret, his family would have to know. There just wasn't any other way to explain why Lancer had let him leave the school. If only he hadn't jumped the gun and essentially told Lancer that he was Phantom, there could have been other ways to handle this. His secret might have still been a secret.

A hand tracked up to the back of his neck and started to slowly massage the tight muscles, still trying to come to grips with what he was about to do. Although he didn't blame the overweight teacher for the situation he'd found himself in, he still felt a small trickle of resentment. The whole 'trap him at school' idea had come from Lancer's mind. In the end, though, it boiled down to the fact that his parents had simply wanted to know what was wrong with him. Now they were going to find out.

"Could you tell them for me?" he asked, looking up hopefully even though he already knew the answer.

Lancer shook his head. "I'll be there just in case something goes wrong, Danny, but you need to be the one to tell them."

He breathed out slowly. "Yeah. I know." They'd been over this before. They'd gone through everything already.

"You want something to eat before we leave?"

Danny shook his head, scrambling to find a way to postpone the inevitable. "What am I going to say again?"

-5:07pm

Danny curled his fingers around the bottom of his shirt, twisting the material until it was bound painfully around his fingers, his eyes tracing the cracks in the dashboard of his teacher's car. "I just don't…" he trailed off as the car shuddered into silence, then glanced over at his teacher.

Edward Lancer pulled his keys out of the ignition and leaned forwards on the steering wheel, glancing once at Danny before looking out the windshield. FentonWorks was glowing in the late afternoon sun. To Danny, the house seemed to loom large and oppressive. Inside, both of them knew, his parents were going about their daily lives, probably inventing some new way to torture their son.

"Think of it like a band-aid," the teacher rumbled, arching an eyebrow. "Get it over with fast."

"Can't we just go back to school?" Danny asked softly. In so many ways, he couldn't wait to tell them but, in so many other ways, he wasn't ready to tell his parents just yet.

His teacher chuckled a little at the excuse, opening his car door and stepping out onto the sidewalk. "No. Out of the car, Daniel."

Danny spent a few precious moments extricating his fingers from the tangle of shirt he'd created and tried to ignore the impossible twisting of his stomach. Finally, unable to come up with any other ways to delay the unavoidable, Danny pushed open his car door and stepped onto the hot tar. He glanced down at his shoes, hoping for an untied shoelace, but there was no such luck. Throat dry, tongue feeling like it was the size of an elephant, he slipped around the car and stopped next to his teacher.

"You'll be fine, Danny," Lancer whispered, a hand touching his shoulder gently.

Running a hand through his hair, coming to rest at his neck, Danny stared at his home. If he were even half the ghost Clockwork was, he'd be able to stop time long enough to count all the bricks, delaying the inevitable for all eternity. No such time-stopping power was jumping to his fingertips, however. A gentle pressure on his back helped to start his feet moving up the short walk, stumbling a little on the front steps, drawing to stop only when the thick front door appeared before him. A hand appeared over his shoulder and Lancer reached up to ring the doorbell.

"It's my home, you don't have to ring the doorbell," Danny murmured to himself, but he didn't raise a hand to open the door himself. His hands seemed to have stopped working, a strange tingling feeling swamping his whole body. He was half-surprised that he hadn't gone intangible and fallen in the basement yet.

He felt his teacher's reassuring bulk behind him. "Just remember what we talked about. You'll be fine."

Danny took a deep breath and licked his dry lips, then the door was wrenched open. His mother, dressed in her normal blue jumpsuit, blinked a few times before a smile appeared on her face. "Danny," she breathed, relief evident in her voice. Her gaze shifted from her son to the teacher and she relaxed a little. "Come on in, sit down."

"Mom…" Danny's voice died when she looked at him. Her eyes were glowing brightly, full of love and happiness and brimming with the relief that the two of them were standing before her. She was looking at him as a mother does to her son... a look that Danny was convinced he'd never see again. From now on, her eyes would be tinged with sadness and regret and distrust. All of the emotions stirred around in his stomach ached for release as his gaze dropped to the floor. "I'm sorry."

Arms, warm and caring and soft, curled around him and pulled him close. "Danny, my baby boy, I love you," she whispered in his ear. "I don't care what you've done. We'll fix it."

Danny relaxed a little in her grip, but his heart skipped a painful beat. It wasn't so much what he'd done that would drive the stake in between them. He knew that his mother would forgive all of his actions and lies in a heartbeat; that was what kind of person she was. It would be her own actions that she'd never be able to forgive or forget. "I love you too."

When she finally let go, he trailed close behind her to the couch. His teacher followed them and picked one of the chairs off to the side to collapse into. Danny sat down and rubbed at his arms anxiously. He wanted to get up and do something, run away, or pace, or fly, or something – do anything but be right here, right now. Talking had never been his strong point anyways.

And she was waiting. Waiting to hear what horrible truths his teacher had managed to wrestle from his psyche. Waiting to hear about gangs or drugs or other things that would give her heart attacks from fear. Think of it like a band-aid. Get it over with fast.

He closed his eyes tightly and took a deep breath. "Where's Dad?" he asked softly, trying to say something that would chase away the impending conversation.

"He's coming," she answered as she sat down next to him, pulling him into a one-armed hug and giving him a smile and a light laugh. "You can stop looking like it's the end of the world. It's not that bad."

He leaned into her a little, trying to put his thoughts into order. Although Lancer and he had discussed this whole thing for hours, he still wasn't sure how to start. It was easier to explain to his teacher what had happened; his teacher wasn't his parents. His teacher would go home at the end of the day. "I…"

His dad suddenly bounded into the room, the bright orange jumpsuit almost glowing in the bright sunlight. "Danny!" he said, his voice a soft bellow, and he dropped into one of the open chairs. The normal, open, and friendly smile was on his face as he leaned forwards, his eyes glittering. "I'm putting the finishing touches on that new invention I was telling you about-" Danny's mother shot him a sharp look, making him trail off and grin sheepishly. "Right," he muttered, rubbing the back of his neck. "Maybe later."

Danny couldn't help the small smile that drifted onto his lips, but the grin disappeared only instants later as his stomach gave a quiet lurch. Taking a deep, unsteady breath, he readied himself for what was about to happen. His mouth opened, but nothing came out. His mouth was too dry, his throat clenching tightly when he tried to speak.

A hand touched his knee, squeezing for just a moment, and he looked up into his mom's eyes. His heart beating loudly in his chest, his words escaping him, his breath rasping in his throat, he raised one hand up, holding it up for her inspection. He watched confusion appear in her eyes as she reached for his hand.

At the last moment he closed his eyes, feeling the cold tingle of the supernatural energy surging through his veins. He struggled for a moment, then willed the energy into existence around his hand. His mother suddenly tensed in surprise when his hand started to burn with an emerald light.

There was total silence for so long that Danny let his eyes slip open again. His mother's hand was still hovering inches from his, frozen with the shock of what she was seeing. He glanced up at her, ready to hear just about anything, his heart pounding in his ears as he waited for some sort of response.

She'd accept this; he knew that. It would take a minute, there would be questions and confusion and hurt over the lies, but she'd accept this. And, true to his thoughts, she slowly relaxed. "Are you okay?" she asked softly, looking at him with concern sparkling in her eyes.

Danny nodded and licked his lips. "I'm fine." He tried for a smile but he couldn't make the right muscles in his face work. "I'm not overshadowed or anything either."

"No, I didn't think so," she murmured, the arm still around his shoulders tightening for a moment in a short hug. "How are you doing that?"

Keeping the energy dancing around his hand, Danny gazed at the flickering green light. "Remember when I got shocked by the portal?" He didn't look up to see if either one of his parents had nodded. "I've been able to do this ever since then."

His father's fingers reached for his hand, but stopped a few inches away, the supernatural energy burning at his skin. "It doesn't hurt?" he asked.

Danny glanced at him, feeling a small piece of his nervousness disappear at the pure curiosity in his father's eyes. Shaking his head, he said, "It just feels cold."

"But…" his mother trailed off for a moment. "But why is this something to hide from us? Why didn't you tell us?"

With no answer – because this wasn't the issue – Danny was quiet for a moment. Then he looked up at his teacher, the only other person in the room who knew the real problem. Lancer didn't say anything, stubborn in his refusal to solve Danny's problem for him but steadfast in his promise to be there for him the entire time. A reassuring nod was all that the teacher was willing to give. Danny felt his heart beating loudly in his chest, wishing for a desperate moment that the teacher could just say it all for him, and he put his next words together.

This was the discussion he and his teacher had practiced at the Nasty Burger for all of those hours. Danny knew what to say and how to say it – now he just needed to spit it out. He licked his lips again and took a deep breath. "What if," he said slowly, "someone was hit with supernatural energy? What would happen?"

"It would dissipate," his father answered instantly. "A couple of hours – maybe a day – and it would be gone."

His mom continued quietly, her eyes fixed on his still-glowing hand as she obviously tried to piece his question and his current paranormal demonstration together. "Unless you were hit with an almost unimaginable amount." The fingers wrapped around Danny's shoulders tensed. She swallowed, her voice thick. "If you were hit with that much, it might not dissipate. It might become self-generating…"

"That's impossible," his dad whispered, shaking his head. "That much energy would be deadly." His eyes suddenly jerked up to Danny's, growing impossibly wide.

"I'm not dead," Danny quickly stressed, finally allowing the supernatural flames flickering around his hand to die and his hand to drop into his lap. "I'm not a ghost." He flinched a little at the half lie, but wrote it off as something that needed to be said at the moment; he needed to get his parents to understand. "I'm just…" Trailing off and shaking his head, he abandoned that train of thought. "What do you think would happen to someone that lived through it?"

Both of his parents were silent for a moment. "According to theory," his father said slowly, "when you have a self-generating mass of energy, it acts almost like a non-sentient ghost; containing all of the abilities of a ghost but not having any sort of consciousness to control them."

Danny waited for them to continue the thought, not yet willing to jump in. They had to be two steps ahead of this discussion already – they might be a bit oblivious, but they were undeniable experts when it came to the paranormal – and his teacher had been right when he said that it would be better for the two of them to figure it out on their own. All he needed to do was hand them enough clues to push them in the right direction.

The waiting, though, was horrible. Sweat was trickling down the back of his neck, his stomach was performing flip flips inside of him, his heart was pounding, and his feet wanted to get up and run away. He wanted his parents to just spit their thoughts out so this whole situation could be over with.

His father sat back in his chair, staring at his son in surprise and, so Danny hoped, understanding. "If you could create a stable mass of energy and attach it to a human form…" the man stopped what he was saying for a moment. Then he took a breath and continued, his voice soft and a little awed, "Ectoplasm reacts to electrical impulses, just like muscles. It'd be controllable."

"So you'd have a human with ghost powers?" Danny asked quietly.

"It's just not possible," his mom said. "You can't fuse a mass of paranormal energy to an organic form without causing so much damage that you'd kill everything first. We went over this years ago when we first created the neural interface for the proto-ectoskelton."

"But we solved that problem." His dad looked up, a small smile on his face and a glitter in his eyes. Danny let a small grin drift onto his face in response. "Organic tissue can withstand small amounts of energy without degrading as long as it's in the right environment and the ectoplasm is filtered correctly. The portal has both of those."

"Enough energy to become stable, though?" His mother shook her head slowly, staring down at the floor. "That might work in a short blast, but the portal stayed on – that intensity of energy for a continued length of time would destroy any organic matter left inside, no matter how filtered the power is." Her eyes narrowed a little as she thought. "It's just not possible."

His father shrugged. "Apparently it is." He was silent, then turned his eyes to Danny. "But why didn't you tell us? We love you no matter what you can do."

Danny swallowed heavily. "I was scared to tell you, at first, because I thought you'd be angry." He had originally thought he'd be babbling by this point, his anxiety to get the situation over with taking over, but now he was having to force every word out of his mouth. "Then I started to get control over it and I figured I could handle it." There was so much more he wanted to explain – about how he knew they would accept him but he never knew what to say, about how he had always wanted them to figure it out without him telling them, about how he really had told them a few times but they didn't remember it – but he couldn't get any more words to form.

"Oh, sweetie," his mother murmured, running her fingers through his hair, but her mind was obviously elsewhere, still struggling to make sense of what had happened to him. As far as Danny knew, her logic was perfect; she was just missing the small puzzle piece about Danny's non-organic ghost form and it was throwing her for a loop. His ghost side was able to survive the energy in the portal.

Danny wasn't sure she'd figure it out on her own and, for a moment, he contemplated not telling them. If he just left it like this – them knowing about his ghost powers but not his ghost side – it would be undeniably easier on all of them. They still didn't know that they had done anything that needed to be dealt with and he would have a lot less lying and trouble at home. He would even tell them about ghost hunting and they'd be able to help.

His eyes flickered up to his teacher's and Lancer looked back at him silently. He could still hear what Lancer had told him the first time he'd suggested only telling his parents half the truth. They're your family, Daniel, they need to know. Besides, they'll figure it out eventually and you'll have to go through this whole this twice.

Dropping his own gaze to the floor, Danny let out a shaky breath. He would have to tell them about Phantom.

"We're a little angry that you didn't tell us," his father was saying, "and I wish you would have trusted us – we could have helped you."

"I know," Danny whispered.

"We're your family. We love you, Danny."

"I know," he said again, just as quietly. After a few seconds of silence, he looked up at his father. The large man was watching him, his face seriously, but his eyes were dancing. "I'm sorry."

"I'm surprised you kept it hidden for so long," his dad said with a grin. "I haven't yet met a Fenton who's good at keeping secrets."

Danny let a small smile drift onto his face. He had been right; his parents – at least his father – had already started to accept this odd facet of his life. He had no doubt that once they got over the strangeness of it, they'd pester him with never-ending lists of questions.

They wouldn't get to do that, though. He still had to yank the rug out from under their feet and completely destroy their neat little world. His father had said it so perfectly: they're his family and they love him.

Only he was really Phantom… and they hated him. And he had to tell them that.

Nervous energy drove him to his feet and he walked over to stand next to his father, his arms crossed over his chest. From here he could see his mom, who was still staring off into the distance, her mind still trying to wrap around the truth. It was obvious that she knew that there was something missing from his explanation; her brain was busy trying to figure out what it could be.

He wanted her to know and he didn't want her to know. He desperately wanted her to figure it out before he told her, and yet he wanted to keep it a secret forever. He wanted his parents to understand who he really was... and at the same time he wanted them never to know the truth.

Slowly, her eyes turned to meet his. Her head tipped to the side a little as she studied him. "What else can you do?" she asked.

"Normal stuff," Danny said, shifting his feet at her steady gaze. "Invisibility, intangibility, flight, control of ectoplasm…" He trailed off before mentioning his ice powers, still dragging his feet to stop from telling them the whole truth. Right now, this was his family - he wanted to keep them just like this for a few more moments. Everything would change once they knew.

"I just don't get it. In order to be able to do those things, you'd have to have a stable mass of energy," his mother said slowly, her head shaking slowly. "But you just can't. If it somehow received a consciousness – even a human one – it would also get some sort of form… They go hand in hand. You can't have one without the other."

Danny nodded slowly, his heart beating painfully as his mother's eyes suddenly widened and she stared at him, blood draining from her face. He didn't have a choice in what was about to happen anymore: his mother had finally put together all the clues.

He still hesitated, just for a second. He knew that after they knew, they wouldn't look at him and see Danny Fenton anymore. They'd still be his family…

But he was about to lose them. Think of it like a band-aid. Get it over with fast.

Fighting down a wave of nervous nausea, he took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and took the plunge.


	6. Plunge 2

_-5:29pm_

The stinging sensation of the rings changing his cells from human to ghost was something completely indescribable. He'd tried – and failed – to explain it to Sam and Tucker a dozen times. The terrifying thrill, the painful wonder, the momentary sensation of being something _else_…

It left no doubt in his mind what he'd just done. There was no mistaking the sensation, no uncertainty as to which form he was in, and absolutely no denying the fact that his parents were only a few feet away. Watching. Waiting.

The ghost in Danny's mind stretched out its fingers and curled them around his emotions, blocking them and dulling them. He felt his shoulders relax slightly, the intense nausea in his stomach dying away to a dim roar. Into the silence, Danny took a deep, rasping breath.

He'd done it.

His human emotions battered at the chilly invincibility of his ghost side, demanding attention. Air shakily rushed out his lungs and his eyes flickered open. He was expecting to see the stunned faces of his parents, but instead he was met with a pair of blue eyes barely three inches from his. He gasped, flinching backwards.

"Amazing," came the soft whisper of his father.

Danny blinked a few times, letting air leek slowly and unsteadily out of his lungs. He couldn't tear his eyes off his dad's intense gaze, feeling his shoulders start to creep up towards his ears and his mind unconsciously starting to plan an escape route.

"Danny?" his mom asked, her voice quiet and trembling.

He licked his dry lips and looked away from his father, swallowing heavily and trying for a weak smile when met his mother's gaze. A wave of nausea passed through him at the pale look on her face and he turned his eyes towards at the ground.

Before Danny was ready, his mom was on her feet, reaching out a hand as she moved slowly towards him. When her fingers were inches from his shoulder, Danny shuffled backwards a half-step, his breath catching in his throat. She froze for a long beat, her eyes uncertain, then moved forwards and set her hand on his shoulder.

The silence was nearly unbearable. The slight weight of his mother's hand felt like a ton of bricks pressing down on his shoulder and Danny felt his body attempt to shift away from her. Her other hand came up to perch on his other shoulder, turning him fully to face her.

"Danny?" she breathed again, her eyes wide and her face pale. Her fingers, trembling and hesitant, trailed up his neck, through his white hair, then traced over his face. "Oh my God…"

"I'm Phantom," Danny whispered, his voice barely audible.

Her hands fell away and she took a small step backwards. "Oh, Danny…"

Rubbing his palm against his leg, Danny glanced back towards his father. The large man was staring in Danny's direction, his eyes distant. "Dad?"

"I never thought…" his dad trailed off, then blinked and focused on Danny. "So that's why you…" He tipped his head slightly to the side, his eyes narrowed and thinking, silent.

"You said you weren't dead," his mother whispered into the silence.

Danny flinched and twisted around, gazing at her with wide eyes. "I'm not!" he insisted. "I… I'm not. I'm not a ghost. I'm not dead."

Her eyes flickered over him, roving from head to toe, slowly shaking her head and taking a step away from him. "Danny…"

"I'm not… Mom…" he pleaded, feeling a swell of dread in his chest when she continued to shake her head and back away from him. His fingers clenched into fists and he felt his jaw tighten. "I'm not a ghost. I can look like a ghost, but I'm not a ghost. I'm… I'm like half-a-ghost."

"That's not possible," she said softly. Tears were glittering in her eyes as she took another step backwards. "It's not possible."

"It's is," Danny said firmly, his heart starting to pound in his throat. "Dad? You believe me, right?" He turned to his father, eyes wide and pleading, shooting glances towards his mother to make sure she hadn't bolted from the room.

The large man blinked his eyes and shook his head before his eyes focused on Danny. "I… Danny… don't…" he stumbled.

"I _know_," his mom cut in. "_Nobody_ could have survived that accident, Danny." She looked down at her feet for a second, closing her eyes. When she looked up, her cheeks were wet with tears. "Nobody."

"But-" Danny raised a hand towards her, his mouthing open in as he desperately tried to figure out what to say. None of this was going to plan. They were supposed to believe him, pull him into a hug and tell him it was going to be okay, love him and respect him and _not_ believe that he was the dead ghost of their son.

More tears trickled loose from her eyes and slid down her cheeks. "Stop," she whispered.

"Mom!"

"Stop, Danny," she said sharply. Her arms wrapped tightly around her chest and she turned away. "Please."

"Mrs. Fenton," Mr. Lancer said, speaking up for the first time. He pushed himself out of his chair and took a few steps towards Danny's mother. Danny, having forgotten the teacher was there, flinched. "I've listened to Danny's explanation and I-"

"Are you an expert on ghosts?" she interrupted quietly.

Mr. Lancer hesitated, then shook his head. "No."

She nodded and took a shuddering breath, not turning around to face them. Her head tipped back slightly, almost like she was staring at the ceiling. "Well, I am. I know the facts, Mr. Lancer, and I know the science. It's not possible." Something like a sob slipped from her, her shoulders hitching. "My son is…" She trailed off, hurrying from the room.

"Mom?" Danny stood still, stunned by the sudden absence of his mother. His hands fell to his side, limp and tingling. Horror and terror tangled in his chest. "But…"

In all the other futures, all the other realities, she'd accepted this. She'd believed him. She'd…

"I'll go talk to her," Mr. Lancer said softly. He walked towards the kitchen door she'd just vanished through, stopping just long enough to squeeze Danny's shoulder once. "Give her a few minutes to think it through. She'll come around."

"Okay," Danny managed to whisper, swaying a bit on his feet. "I… I… I guess."

The teacher walked through the door, shutting it softly behind him. Danny stared blankly at it for a long moment, his stomach churning painfully and his heart beating loudly in his ears, before turning back with every intention to slump on the couch and try to pretend the last fifteen minutes hadn't occurred.

He didn't quite make it to the couch.

His father was still standing there, gazing at him, and Danny had completely forgotten he was in the room.

* * *

_-5:36pm_

"I believe you."

Danny blinked in surprise, taking a small step backwards, his eyes widening in surprise. "You do?" he said softly, a tentative smile creeping unconsciously onto his face.

His father nodded.

"Why?" Danny bit off the word almost before it'd made it out of his mouth, mentally attempting to kick himself for asking a question like that.

"You're my son. You're a Fenton." The large man said the words slowly but firmly, the slight frown on his face melting into a smile. He took an unexpected step forwards and pulled Danny into a bone-crushing hug. Danny froze, his body tensing at the sudden contact. "I trust you," the man said, his chest rumbling with the words. "And it kind of makes sense."

Danny relaxed at those words, clenching his fingers tightly in his dad's jumpsuit. "Thanks," he whispered before extracting himself from his father's grip. A wet sensation on his cheeks brought a hand up to brush at tears, his heartbeat slowly settling back to normal.

The chair protested loudly as his father dropped into it. He leaned forwards, setting his arms on his knees, and studied Danny for another long second. Danny swallowed a leftover lump in his throat and ran a hand through his hair, looking out the window. Outside, the sun was shining on a beautiful late afternoon day.

"That's why you've been skipping school and missing curfew and shirking from your chores, huh? You've been ghost hunting?"

Danny nodded, shifting his weight from foot to foot, studying a bird that was fluttering in a tree. "Yeah."

"And the bruises and cuts and things?"

"Most of them." He risked a glance towards his father. The man was still sitting in the chair, apparently listening and accepting what was being said.

"Most of them?" the man repeated. "What are the rest from?"

Danny shrugged, shifting his gaze from the window to the blank TV set. "Guys at school."

"You're still getting pushed around at school?" his father said, startled. "And you're getting hurt? Why didn't you tell us?"

Brilliant green eyes flickered over to glare at his father, a vague scowl on his face. "I can take care of myself."

"Nobody bullies a Fenton," Jack said stubbornly, his jaw clenching and his eyes narrowing. Danny tensed slightly, ready to defend his actions, but his father sank back into his chair and shook his head. "We can talk about it later, I guess."

Silence. Somewhere in the kitchen, a drawer banged shut and there was the sound of a chair scraping against the floor.

"Danny… Phantom," Jack said softly.

Danny smiled vaguely and shrugged, stuffing his clammy hands into the pockets of his jumpsuit. "Not my idea," he said as he rocked back on his heels.

"I captured you once. Almost got a reward for it too."

"Mom caught me," Danny shot back, doing his best to keep his voice light and teasing. "And only because I let her."

His father arched an eyebrow. "I believe you said you'd heard of me and were turning yourself in."

A snort worked its way out of Danny's nose. "Well, I _had_ heard of you. I ate breakfast with you"

"Did I hurt you?"

Danny froze at the pain in his father's voice. His stomach felt like it was dropping towards his toes. For a second there, everything had almost seemed normal again. But it wasn't, not really. Reality had to come crashing back down.

"Danny?"

"No," Danny said sharply, firmly. He cut his hands through the air. "You've never hurt me. I wouldn't have let you."

Jack's blue eyes were uncertain. He looked away, gazing at the kitchen door Maddie had vanished through.

"Actually, you saved me, remember?" Danny continued, putting a smile on his face and taking a stop forwards. "You stepped in front of that hacky-sack and got covered in goo?" He reached out and touched his father's hand. "And you let me go, remember? And you stopped the portal from exploding… that was nice."

"I shrank you."

Danny looked up at the ceiling for a second. "That I didn't appreciate," he said ruefully. "It'd be nice if you didn't do that again."

There were a few beats of silence as Jack stuck out his lower jack and nodded a few times, his eyes focusing on Danny's. "I don't…" he stopped, then shook his head firmly. "I don't like that you kept this a secret. Your mother and I could have really hurt you."

"I…" Danny trailed off, biting his lip, but he forced himself to restart. He'd been over this time after time with Lancer – he could spit it out one more time. "At first, I was scared of what you'd say. I didn't think you'd believe me. That you'd think I was a ghost playing a trick or something."

Danny's gaze locked on his feet, watching one of his boots dig into the carpet. "And you kept taking about tearing me apart molecule by molecule." A trace of sarcasm entered his voice as he said that, an odd little smile appearing on his face. "I didn't want to tell you. At first I thought… I thought it'd be better if you didn't know."

"Dann-o," his father sighed.

The smile on Danny's face flickered bigger at the nickname, some of the knots in his stomach untying themselves. "I started to get control of it. And I got good at it, Dad. I'm a really good ghost hunter." Danny hesitated, bringing his eyes up to stare into his father's. "And then… and then it didn't seem like I had to. That it'd be easier, after all the lies I'd already told you and all the time you'd been hunting me, just for you never to know."

The man nodded slowly.

A cold hand suddenly reached down into Danny's chest and squeezed at his heart, causing his body to convulsively shiver. Danny shook his head and ignored the sensation – now was not the time to be hunting down a ghost. "I wanted to tell you." His father's face was getting blurry from the tears piling up in his eyes. "I always… I really… I just…"

A warm hand touched his chin, then moved to his shoulder to pull Danny into another rough hug. Jack's arms held Danny tight for a long minute.

"I'm sorry," Danny said into his father's shoulder, his entire being behind those two words.

Jack took a breath to answer just as another shiver raced up Danny's spine. "What's-" Jack started to say.

"Isn't this nice…" a haunting voice interrupted, filling the room with its echoing chill.

* * *

_-5:47pm_

The voice was almost tangible. Danny jerked out of his father's grasp, swiping at the burning sensation of cobwebs rapidly tangling around his arms. Pain flared wherever the strands touched, the cut on his arm from the previous night suddenly screaming in agony. He'd never felt anything like it before. "Ghost," he gasped.

"I found you," the voice hissed. "You can't hide from me."

The wispy fibers of noise wrapped around his head and Danny curled up in a ball, brushing futilely at the agonizing strands, noting with a flash of fear that his body was responding more and more slowly to his commands.

"Ghost!" came a shout. The word seemed distant and blurry. Then there was the faint sound of his father demanding, "Who are you?"

"It doesn't matter." A small ghost shimmered into existence, its body standing over Danny. With every word it spoke, long damp strands of its hair tangled around Danny's body and wrapped his brain in a layer of fuzz. "I'm not here for you."

"No," Danny muttered, his mouth barely moving, still struggling to get out of the strange hairs. He recognized the ghost – it was the one from the school last night. But the ghost hadn't done the hair thing before. "I shoulda caught you when I had the chance," he tried to snarl, but the words came out garbled and unintelligible.

Danny blinked painfully and watched his father edge towards the TV, the world starting to swirl and spin. For a moment, he stopped fighting the ghost and let his mind wonder what was on TV to watch tonight. "Who are you here for?" Jack asked, prodding Danny back into movement.

"The half-breed, idiot," the ghost snarled. "He's coming with me."

"He's not going anywhere. Danny? Danny!"

Danny contemplated answering, but his body seemed to suddenly be made of bricks and lead. He sank to the ground, struggling simply to get air in and out of his lungs, fighting off the pain that was still racing through his mind. His chest started to burn, his body shutting down and his mind giving up the fight.

"MADS!" his father shouted.

"Come, half-breed," the ghost of the girl whispered. The cobweb-like hairs tugged on his arms and Danny found himself standing up and moving, confused as to what was going on. "Follow me."

Danny turned his head slightly to gaze at his father, even as his body took a few steps towards the ghost.

"NO!" The man wrenched open a drawer and pulled out an ectoweapon. It whined painfully as it charged up a shot. "That's my son, you dirty ball of goo!"

"Half-breed," the ghost crooned, reaching out one of its child-like hands and wrapping it around Danny's fingers. An intense flare of pain shot up his arm from the cut he'd gotten.

He turned his head to stare blankly at the sting in his arm. The hairs from the ghost's head were curled around his body and seemed to be digging into the cut, finding a way inside of him.

His neck moved without his permission, turning him to face his father. The orange suit was blurry and unfocused, his father's face swimming in his dazed vision. "He'll do anything I say," the ghost chuckled. "Won't you, half-breed?"

"Danny?" The voice was incredibly far away.

Something squirmed in his neck and Danny's eyes flinched closed. His breath caught in his throat as the impossible feeling of needles started to worm their way into his brain.

"See the human, half-breed?"

The pain was so great he didn't really hear the ghost, but he felt his head nod anyways, the things in his head moving and finding their way deeper.

He tried to scream, but the world went dark, the ghost's last two words echoing around in his pain-filled mind.

"Kill it."


	7. Plunge 3

_-5:51pm_

There was nothing.

No light.

No sound.

No movement.

It was death, in its own way. The end of existence. Unable to look around at an abyss so dark there should be something, unable to feel the complete lack of cold and warmth and touch, unable to hear the silence scream to the heavens. It was nothing and everything all at once.

Danny wasn't afraid. But then again, there wasn't Danny, not really.

The ghost had Danny. The child-like one with the crazy hair. The one that had tried to take over at school. The one that had succeeded in grabbing him at his parents' house, just as Danny was trying to get his parents to see that he wasn't a ghost. The one that was using his body to do anything and everything it wanted.

Danny might have screamed, if he'd existed enough to scream. He might have fought it, if he'd been aware enough to know what fighting was.

But he didn't. He couldn't.

And that was it.

There was nothing.

* * *

_-8:19pm_

Danny woke on the couch of the living room, disoriented and stiff. There was a thick blanket covering him, warm and heavy, and the feel of someone's hand running through his hair. Slowly, his eyes opened.

The living room looked like a bomb had hit. Charred bits were all that remained of a reclining chair, a fire extinguisher lying next to the still-smoking remnants of the old bookcase. The walls were scuffed and darkened in spots, holes torn in others. Several of the lights were broken and non-functioning, putting strange shadows in the familiar room. The smell of burnt ectoplasm lingered in the air.

His pillow moved. Realizing his head was lying in someone's lap, Danny shifted and tried to sit up. His body protested the movement – as did the person running their fingers through his hair. "Stop moving."

The voice was unmistakable. And, now that his brain was processing what happened, the slight smell of musty greenhouses and flowering lilacs filled his nose. "Sam?" Rolling onto his back, leaving his head in her lap, Danny gazed up at his best friend. "What happened?"

She smiled, just a touch, and picked up a Fenton Thermos. It seemed to glow in the evening light. "Ghost. What else happens to you?" Then her smile faded. "Danny…"

Silence fell. She stared at him.

Memories slotting into place. He stared back at the violet-eyed girl. A broken emptiness passed between them. Her fingers reached forwards and brushed at his hair. It sounded crispy and dirty.

"My parents okay?"

There was a nod. "Tucker and I… the ghost alarm on Tucker's phone went off. We were pretty close by. What do you remember?"

Danny shrugged. His eyes drifted towards the disaster left in the living room, then flickered towards the partly-open kitchen door. Soft voices came from beyond. His eyes closed again. He didn't want to think about it. "There was a ghost. Some little girl with hair. Everything is kind of blank."

"Your mom had the ghost trapped in the corner when we got here. Your dad… he was holding you down. You were screaming at him, fighting him, trying to get away. Tucker sucked the ghost into a Thermos and everything got really quiet." Sam stopped talking. Her fingers stopped moving through his hair.

Danny glanced up at her. "What?"

"Why did you tell them?" Her voice was soft. Barely audible.

Sitting up, ignoring the protesting of his muscles and the tensing of Sam's fingers, Danny stretched his muscles. He focused his attention on his fingernails, noticing that one of them needed to be cut. "It's complicated," he whispered. "I ran out of options."

A hand touched his shoulder and Danny squirmed out from underneath. "Danny." Exasperation colored her voice. "You did the right thing."

Danny glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. "You think so?"

She pushed a lock of her frizzy hair behind her ear. A tiny gold earring gleamed and a little smirk settled onto her face. "I know so. You always end up doing the right thing, Danny, even if it doesn't seem like it at the time. It's one of those 'things' I've just gotten used to."

"Lancer knows too."

"Figured, being that he was-" Sam broke off, shaking her head.

"He was what?" Danny glanced towards the kitchen door, then back.

Sam bit her lip and looked away. "Your mom," she hesitated. "After we caught the ghost she kind of spun around and looked ready to attack _you_. Lancer was the one who stepped in front of her."

"She thinks I'm a ghost." It hurt to say.

There was the sound of a chair squeaking in the kitchen, probably having been pushed away from the table quickly. Footsteps. Someone had gotten up, was pacing. Louder voices, but still unintelligible. Danny turned his attention to the door, tensing. Every fiber in his body was focused, expecting the door to move, to swing open, to admit people with questions. With accusations. With demands for answers to questions he couldn't even start to answer.

The door didn't move.

Slowly, Danny's body relaxed. "When did I turn human?"

"You were human when I got here. Did you show… your parents?"

Nodding, Danny finally tore his eyes away from the kitchen door. He turned back to Sam, whose face was a picture of sympathy and worry. Quietly, he reached out and picked up the simmering Thermos. He could feel the ghost curled up inside. Volatile, full of energy, prickling with potential. The sensation against his hands was a distraction from the curling in his stomach. "They all in there?" The thought of what was in the kitchen, waiting, made his eyes burn.

"Yep." Silence. "You going to go talk to them?"

A swirl of energy scrambled up his arm, making the muscles in his shoulder twitch. The energy inside of Danny's body responded, reaching upwards with a chilling sensation that sent a shiver down his back. The increase of energy in his body called to the ghost in the Thermos – a quiet cycle of building power that thrummed in Danny's mind.

"Danny?"

The Thermos was taken from his hands. Danny glanced up at his best friend. His eyes blinked a few times as his brain focused back on what was going on around him.

"I think you need to talk to them," Sam said softly, cradling the Thermos in an elbow.

Danny looked towards the kitchen door again. It was simple and brown. Light gleamed around the edge, casting a strange L-shaped glow on the floor. His stomach clenched. His leg bounced up and down. His fingers tapped and tapped and tapped against his knee.

"Danny."

A hand grabbed his moving fingers, warm and soft, and pulled. Danny followed the hand, gliding to his feet. Sam's body was against his side, holding him up while his protesting muscles adjusted to the idea of standing. Danny glanced back at the couch, at the messy folds of the thick quilt someone – probably Sam – had dug out of a closet. He wanted to sit back down, to bury his head in a pillow, to ignore the kitchen.

But Sam's hand was tight around his and her forward movement was endless and persistent. His feet shuffled, shifted, and then moved to follow. Sam pushed against the kitchen door, pulling them onto the old linoleum.

Silence.

* * *

_-8:42pm_

Four people sat at the kitchen table, their attention momentarily focused on the two newcomers. Danny's father had his arm around his wife's shoulders, holding her close. Her arms were crossed tightly over her chest; a blank look on her face as she sat slumped in a chair against her husband. Lancer was leaning forwards, his arms crossed and limp on the table, sitting next to the only teenager at the table. Tucker's eyes were red, his lower lip tucked between his teeth, not willing to look up.

"Danny," his father welcomed, his voice soft and cracked. A dark bruise was blossoming under one of the large man's eyes, scratches and scrapes along his arms. The curiosity, the interest, that had sparkled in his gaze was gone. It had been replaced by an empty deadness. "Feeling better?"

His mother shifted. Her eyes were dark. Her arms tensed, fingers digging into her arms.

Danny stared at his father. His eyes couldn't seem to stop tracing over the cuts and specks of blood. He didn't remember – the ghost made sure of that – but Danny knew. He _knew_ who had caused all that.

The knowledge hurt. It made his heart feel like it was being squeezed in a vice. His body moved, trying to back up, trying to get away from the sight of what he'd done.

"Danny, come sit down." It was Lancer. His voice calm and commanding, but with a stressed tone. Obviously the person who was trying to keep a lid on a tense situation.

Danny's eyes flicked over to Tucker. The teen's shoulders were curled forwards, a broken expression in his eyes. Danny could picture what had happened so easily in his head. Hours of sitting at the kitchen table with his parents, fielding questions, struggling with demanding accusations of wrong-doing.

It should have been Danny sitting there. Not Tucker.

Tucker didn't deserve this.

Danny knew what he should do. He should stalk over there, push Tucker out of the chair, and insist that his parents ask _him_ the questions. Let Tucker go home, or at least let him out of the spotlight. None of this was Tucker's fault.

But Danny couldn't move. His feet felt glued to the floor. The muscles in his stomach and back seemed to be trembling, creating a strange sensation of standing on a waterbed. The shaky feeling spread to his arms and legs.

His mother's night-shaded eyes fixed on his and the floor felt like it was giving way.

Sam pushed at his shoulder, but Danny pushed back. Lancer rose out of his chair – probably to come escort him to a chair. His father's shoulders squared, the rare look of parental authority sparking in his face.

It was all too much. Danny hadn't wanted to do this in the first place, not really. He firmly believed his life was better with his parents in the dark about the whole ghost thing.

He'd screwed up with Lancer, letting the teacher know his secret. He'd allowed the man to logic him into telling his parents. He'd _told _his parents, only it hadn't gone at all right. His mother was staring at him like death warmed over and his father had been attacked. The ghost…

"Danny, don't!"

Sam's voice was distant, a scream at the empty air. Because Danny couldn't take it anymore. Because he was already gone.


	8. Plunge 4

_-1:02am_

October wasn't the best time of the year to spend the night in the park under a tree. Danny didn't really feel the cold – not anymore – and he'd just decided that it wouldn't be so bad when it started to rain. The steady beat of water on his head had nearly driven Danny from the park. Eventually the pouring rain tapered off to a drizzle, but the lingering wetness plastered his hair to the side of his face.

His nose was plugged and stuffy. His eyes felt like they were dry and covered in sandpaper. His cheek was raw from the number of times he'd swiped at falling tears. His back was sore from pressing up against the rough bark of the tree.

At least he could breathe again. And his heart wasn't pounding in his ears. He'd probably notice if a ghost stood beside him now. Nightmare scenarios involving his parents abandoning him, dissecting him, getting hurt because of him, the world blowing up now that they know… They had all finally stopped fluttering through his mind.

Logic was coming back into play. The world still might end up blowing up – he _was_ Phantom after all – but the odds of it being caused by telling three people his secret was slim.

…as long as Vlad never found out about this. Then all bets were off.

Really, in the grand scheme of things, nothing much had changed. The logical side of Danny's mind kept repeating that sentence, but he couldn't find the heart to accept it.

Curling his arms around his knees, pulling his legs close to his chest, Danny glared out into the darkness. A rather large piece of his chest was throbbing in painful humiliation – him, Danny Fenton, _hero_ of Amity Park, had just suffered through a rather extreme panic attack. The rest of him hurt too much to care what other people thought.

A large raindrop plopped onto his head and rolled down his cheek. Danny brushed at it absently, watching cars pass by on the road. There weren't many cars out at this time of the morning. It had always been Danny's favorite time to go on patrol. His decidedly ghostly ability to see in the dark was ruined by bright headlights. Quiet, empty, and dark.

One car slowed as it approached the gate to the park and Danny felt his heart thumping in his chest. Jazz?

His sister had an almost unearthly ability to find him when the world was turning upside down. She had a scary sense of logic, a quiet calm in storms. He had no doubt that if only Jazz were here, everything would end up being alright. Not back to normal – that couldn't be possible – but at least 'okay' again.

The car sped up and vanished down the street. Danny let his forehead drop to his knees. "I wish…" He sighed, cutting off the dangerous words. There was no telling who was around to twist even the most well-intentioned wish into Hell on Earth. If not Desirae, then some other well-meaning, but horribly misinformed person.

"Daniel."

Danny let out a huge breath; speak of the Devil and he shall appear. He looked up into the concerned eyes of his teacher. "What?" He flinched at the hoarse, horrible sound of his voice.

Lancer glanced down at the muddy ground, seeming to contemplate sitting, before crouching in front of Danny's curled-up form. "Your sister gave me a clue where to find you."

Eyes narrowing, Danny pushed himself to his feet. After spending hours curled up into a little ball, his still-hurting body loudly protested the sudden movement. Clenching his teeth, Danny growled, "Why are _you_ here?"

"It didn't go well," the teacher said softly, not moving from his crouched position.

Danny stalked a few feet away, resting against the other side of the tree. "You think?" Curling his hand into his hair, Danny stared off into the darkness. "This is exactly why I didn't want to tell them," he whispered.

"So what's your plan now?"

Lonely lights glittered here and there from the buildings around Amity Park. Late-night owls, insomniacs, graveyard shift workers. Danny let his gaze shift from one to the other, his mind quietly filling in possible reasons why other people in the universe would be up in the middle of the night. Certainly he had a unique excuse. "I dunno."

There was a tisking sound. "It sounds like you have two options. One is to go back and talk to them. The other's not to go back. They're not hard options to chose between."

"I know." Danny rubbed a hand over his face. "I know. I just… I can't go back."

"Why not?" Lancer's voice was quiet in the dark.

"Didn't you see the looks on their faces?" Danny felt his body tensing, remembering the few moments when he'd come face-to-face with his parents. He could feel his heart beating faster, his breathing catch, just at the _thought_ of what had happened. "I'm not… who I was. Not to them. Not anymore."

Lancer made a half-cough sound in the back of his throat. "I think it'll be okay-"

"What?" Danny interrupted, spinning around on his heel. His eyes burned, shadows jumping into sharp relief as supernatural power swirled around him. Body tensing, Danny practically vibrated with pent-up energy. "How can this be _okay_?! My mom thinks I'm _dead_. I _attacked_ my dad. I _abandoned _my best friends to… whatever! I-"

"I, I, I, I, I," Lancer mocked. The teacher looked very pale in the dark of the night, but gazed unwaveringly into Danny's eyes. "What about everyone else?"

Mouth snapping closed, Danny glared at the slightly overweight teacher. "What about them?"

"Yeah, what about _them_." Lancer got to his feet, brushing at his pants. "They're just your family and friends." A roll of thunder curled through the momentary silence. "You'll be perfectly fine without _them_."

Danny let out a shaky breath. Energy dissipated into the air, leaving him feeling cold and alone. His arms crept around his chest and he hugged himself tightly. Sharp, painful memories sliced through his mind of what happened the last time he was left alone. Explosions. Death. Insanity.

Quite suddenly, Danny found himself chuckling – it wasn't a happy sound, however. Shaking his head sourly, Danny sank back down to the ground, ignoring the newest layer of mud on his clouds, refusing to look his teacher in the eyes. "You realize it was your fault last time too."

"I wasn't aware," Lancer said softly. There was a quiet few minutes of silence as rain started to patter down once more. The sound of the rain against the tree leaves gave the world a syncopated beat. "I _am_ sorry, Danny, that it went so badly. But I'm not sorry that I made you tell them."

Danny listened to the rain, his mind creating endless patterns out of the sound of the drops in the dying October leaves. A roll of far-away thunder growled through the city. Another storm was approaching. It fit his feelings perfectly: it was the lull between the storms.

"What do you think I should do?" Danny's gaze drifted back to the road where another lonely car passed alongside the park. This one slowed to a stop at the gate, idling in place.

"I think you need to give your family a chance."

Unable to comprehend the idea of walking up to his family and talking to them after everything that had happened, Danny just mutely shook his head. His fingers started to quietly tap the side of his arm in time to the raindrops.

"So you're going to run away?"

Someone stepped out of the car beside the road, an umbrella unfolded overhead. Even with his better eyesight, Danny couldn't make out who it was. The person walked around the car and strolled into the park entrance. Finally, Danny shook his head again.

Running away wasn't much of an option.

"Your parents sent me home," Lancer continued quietly, "but I wanted to stop and check in on you before I left." Silence. "I've got to call and tell them you're here." More silence. "Daniel…"

The person at the gate entrance lifted the umbrella enough for Danny to realize it wasn't his sister or either parent. Or Sam or Tucker. Or even Valerie. Heart sinking slightly, Danny let out a low breath. "I'm gonna head home."

"You want a ride?" Danny could hear the doubt in Lancer's voice. The teacher probably wanted to make sure Danny made it without 'getting lost'.

With a shake of his head, Danny lurched to his feet and glanced at his teacher. The man was hunched in his jacket, hands pushed into pockets, trying to hide from the rain. Danny couldn't help but feel a tiny bit of joy at the man's discomfort. "I'll be fine. I know how to get home in the dark."

"I'm sure you do," Lancer said softly. "I'll call and tell them you're on your way."

"Don't trust me?"

Lancer's mouth quirked into a smile. "I trust you, Danny, more than you could possibly realize. But I also trust that you'll manage to get home sometime next week without encouragement."

"Fine, whatever." Danny looked away with a dark sigh.

A hand curled around Danny's shoulder, squeezing for a second. "It'll be okay, Mr. Fenton. I promise. And – if for some reason I'm wrong – there's always a guest room at my house you can borrow."

"Yeah," Danny whispered. "Thanks."

"You're welcome. Now go home." Lancer's hand disappeared as the man walked towards the park entrance and the lady under the umbrella.

"You're weird, you know?" Danny called after him. Lancer stopped and glanced back. "I still can't decide if I should hate you or not for all this. You just… you don't act right."

Lancer's mouth turned up into a small smile. "I'll take that as a compliment. Good night, Mr. Fenton."

Danny shook his head. "Good night," he said softly. He stood under the tree, waiting until Lancer was greeted by umbrella-lady and escorted to the car for a ride home. The headlights flared into being and the car purred up the street, leaving the park dark and lonely.

Stuffing his hands into his pockets, Danny started a slow walk towards home. Cold rain pelted from the sky, dribbling cold rivers down every bit of Danny's body. Wet, dead leaves slopped around underfoot. Lightning flared now-and-then, followed by low rolls of thunder and sharp thunderclaps.

It was almost an hour before Danny got up the nerve to actually leave the park.

* * *

_-3:14am_

Danny felt like Clockwork was offering him some sort of freaky do-over. With the notable exceptions of the rain, the time of night, and the lack of a teacher over his shoulder, Danny could have sworn that he'd just been in this situation not ten hours earlier. He stood at the very edge of his parents' property, on the sidewalk, staring up at the brick façade.

Lights were on inside. Beyond the curtains, he could see movement. There were people in there. Waiting for him?

His fingers wound into the bottom of his soaked shirt, his tongue felt like it was the size of an elephant. His feet shuffled on the sidewalk, almost like they were daring each other to take the first step. Lancer had pushed him before – now he'd have to do this walk by himself.

Slowly, each step feeling like he was walking through thick goo, Danny paced towards the front door. The sidewalk wasn't long… it usually only took a few steps to cover, then a jump up the small set of concrete steps. This time, it felt like an eternity. Step after step after step, walking endlessly into a pit he might never be able to escape.

His heart was pounding loudly in his ears when he stepped up the last step to stare at the brown front door. Emotions were sizzling through him, too intense to pick apart. His eyes stung from the rain and tears that were threatening to fall again. Unbidden memories jumped to the front of his mind, treating him to visions of his parents throwing him from the house, experimenting on him, even turning him over to the government.

"Think of it like a band-aid," Danny whispered, thinking back to what his teacher had said.

His fingers shook as they slowly reached up. The doorbell was round and solid under his finger. It took a second for him to actually push against it.

"You'll be fine," he whispered.

His hands came back to rub at his arms, fingers curling around the edges of his shirt as the doorbell echoed through the house. Someone moved inside, the silhouette coming ever closer. Footsteps.

"Don't go invisible, don't go invisible," Danny muttered under his breath as the lock clicked and the doorknob turned. A crack of light shone through, hesitated, then the door flew open.

Danny's heart stopped.

It was his mother. She was still wearing the blue jumpsuit from earlier, her hair messy and her eyes red. Her gaze flickered down to Danny's feet, then back up to his eyes. "Danny," she said very softly. There was something in her eyes. Wetness glistened in the corners.

"Mom." Danny shuffled from foot to foot, arms tight against his chest, uncomfortable. "Can we try this again?"

After a horribly long moment of silence, his mother nodded. Ever so slowly, she reached out and pushed a lock of soaking wet hair out of Danny's eyes. "You're all wet."

Maybe it wasn't the embracing hug he would have normally gotten, but it was like the world restarted with that little touch. There was uncertainty to it, fear and regret and pain, but at least it _was_. It was a start of something. Danny felt his heart restart, his breath not catch so hard in his throat.

Maybe Lancer was right. Maybe it would be okay. Somehow. Someday.

"It's raining," Danny managed to say around the lump in his throat as a grumble of thunder rolled through the area. He watched his mother glance over his shoulder at the downpour, saw her eyes linger on the rivers washing down the sides of the streets.

Her eyes came back to his. Darkness still lingered in them. Confusion. Hurt. Grief. "Go get dried off, then we'll talk, okay?" she said softly.

Danny nodded, feeling the water squelching between his toes. "Sorry I ran away," he murmured. "Bad plan." His shoulders started to creep up around his ears as his mother gazed at him.

The smallest of smiles. "Go get dried off," she repeated, a little more firmly.

Returning the tiny smile with one of his own, Danny kicked off his shoes, left them out in the rain, and slipped past his mother into the house. He glanced over into the living room, noticing his sister and father sitting on the couch watching him, and headed up the stairs. Water dripped and pooled behind him.

Grabbing a change of clothes, Danny headed to the bathroom. His clothes made a wet pile in the tub as he dried off, then pulled on the warmer, dry shirt and pants. Running a comb through his hair to get rid of the worst of the mess, Danny stared at himself in the mirror.

He couldn't begin to know what his parents saw when they looked at him. Always before, they had seen a normal teenage boy. Now… now would they begin to see the truth about him? Would they see some sort of monster, some sort of half-ghost _thing_ to be feared and pitied?

Green crept into his eyes, glowing and shifting like the mists of the ghost zone. The color gave a strange pallor to his face, making him look partially dead. Eerie. Creepy.

A huge clap of thunder made the house shudder and the lights flicker. Danny glanced around, startled, his heart beating quickly in his chest. He took a deep breath and slowly let it out. Gazing into his own eyes, Danny said, "You can't put this off any longer. Get downstairs."

The bathroom door creaked. The stairs groaned when he stepped on them. The third-to-the-bottom step made a cracking noise. His feet made little sounds on the carpet as he slowly paced into the living room.

His mother was sitting on the couch, just as she'd done ten hours earlier. His father was back in his recliner, Jazz in the chair Lancer had vacated. It was like time had been rewound, reset, and it was time for a redo.

His heart beat in time with his footsteps, painfully loud in his ears. His breath was fighting its was in and out of his lungs. His hands were starting to shake again, filled with nervous energy.

"Danny," his father rumbled. There was concern in his voice. The black eye was worse than before, the scratches red and swollen. The man looked like he'd been on the wrong side of a bar fight.

Danny stopped and gazed at him, but when nothing more came, Danny slid over to the couch and sat down next to his mother. He was careful not to touch her, not to sit too close. Shoulders tense and hunched over, he couldn't relax against the cushions like he usually did.

His eyes flickered over to Jazz. She smiled calmly at him. "Why don't you try starting at the beginning again."

His parents nodded in agreement.

Danny nodded too, slower, less certain, his gaze training down on his fingers. They were moving, roaming, unable to sit still. "I got caught the portal when I was fourteen," Danny said, his voice not as strong as he wanted it to be, "and it did something to me. I never told you."

"Why not?" His father, again with that strange concern-laced curiosity.

His finger flicked at a fingernail. "At first, because I was afraid of what you'd say. Then, I just didn't have to. I had it figured out. After awhile, it was just too big. I didn't even know where to start."

"You realize how dangerous that decision was?" His mother's voice, calm and quiet.

Nodding, Danny entwined his fingers. "I guess."

"You guess." There was a flatness to his mother's tone that caused Danny to glance at her. "You _guess_. Danny, you're much smarter than that. Come up with a better explanation."

At the slight rebuke, Danny felt a flush of impatience. "Didn't Tucker tell you all of this?"

"_Tucker_ is not my son," his mother replied firmly.

Danny flinched back from that. "True," he whispered. When no further encouragement seemed to be coming, Danny let out a slow breath. "Maybe it was more dangerous to tell you than to not." He couldn't take his eyes off his fingers.

"Explain that."

Danny couldn't – not without unraveling a whole lot more of the past year than he'd ever planned to. His parents weren't going to find out about Vlad. Or the bounty on his head from the Ghost Zone. Or Valerie. Slowly, Danny shook his head.

A hand went over his. The fingers were broad and thick and powerful, scarred with years of equipment malfunctions. "You think it's still too dangerous."

Danny sat silent for a moment, but then nodded once, unable to come up with a better explanation. That _was_ at the root of the problem; the more his parents knew, the more danger they were in.

"Tucker explained a lot of things," his mother said. "A lot of things we don't understand. A lot of things we can't even begin to imagine. I…"

Danny closed his eyes when his mother trailed off into silence.

"Danny, I'm sorry for the way I acted earlier." She didn't reach forwards to touch him. "I… still don't understand what's happened to you. I can't wrap my mind around why you'd hide this from us." His father's warm fingers curled around Danny's, holding tightly. "I need _something_, Danny. Please."

Danny just continued to sit there, eyes closed, trying to figure out what he could say. "I'm not dead," he finally said. "I'm not a ghost or something."

"We know." His father pushed him a bit, shooing Danny to the middle of the couch, then settled next to him. The one hand didn't let go of Danny's fingers. The other arm wrapped firmly around his shoulders. Danny could feel the bulk of his father beside him, his mother still perched out of reach. "How about you explain the ghost."

Licking his lips, Danny let his eyes open. He couldn't get the courage to look up. "She was bugging me at school yesterday." His eyes flickered to the clock. "Or, well, the day before, I guess…" There was a beat of silence. "Never seen her before, don't even know what her name is. Got a killer scream though. And apparently the ability to take people over." Danny felt a shudder race through his body. Emotions scrabbled to take hold, but Danny shoved them back down. He had enough to deal with right now.

"Why was she at the school?"

"Probably because I was there. She was going on and on about finding the right servants and taking over the world. You know, normal crazy ghost stuff." Danny flicked a glance at his father's face. The man was focused on him, curious and listening. Danny traced over the scratches before wrenching his gaze away. "She left after I… _explained_… that I wasn't interested in helping." Danny sighed. "Followed me here. You know how that went."

The smallest of touches on his arm. Danny glanced down at his mother's slim fingers, then up into her face. "How much do you remember?"

"After she took over?" Danny asked. When his mother nodded, Danny shook his head. "Nothing. One second there's this ghost here and the next I'm waking up on the couch."

"Has that ever happened before?"

Danny was quiet, then shrugged, looking away. "Kinda. It's the first time I've never remembered anything."

His mother's lips thinned into a line. "And you're _okay_ with this?" There was disbelief and pain in her voice.

"No." Danny's voice was short and sharp. His whole body shuddered at the idea of being okay with it. "Never. But it's not like I'm given a lot of choice."

"You could have talked to us. We could have helped."

Having talked himself around in a circle, Danny sighed and shook his head. "I couldn't…"

Silence fell. Rain pattered against the windows. A grumble of thunder echoed outside. Someone let out a breath.

"Mr. Lancer," his mother said, "says that you're in over your head. That you don't know what to think anymore. That you're not able to make the right decisions. That there are people out there controlling you, in a way, keeping you from choosing other options."

Danny closed his eyes.

"He said he's afraid you've been hurt. That someone's really hurt you. Experiments."

Danny shivered despite the warmth of the room and attempted to stand up. His father kept his arm firmly in place around Danny's shoulders. The man's grip tightened, pulling Danny close.

"He explained to us that you're… different… depending on who you're around. That nobody knows who the 'real' you is, and he's worried about the _real_ you. He's worried that you're scared and lost and confused and have no idea what to do next."

Shifting, Danny pulled his hands out of his father's grip, but didn't try to stand up again. He ran his fingers through his hair, letting out a shaky breath.

"Danny." There, finally, she reached out and grabbed his hands, holding them still. Her fingers were cold and trembling. "Danny look at me."

Danny slowly looked up. Her eyes were rimmed with a new redness. He could see trails from tears leaking down her face. Tears that had been silently shed while talking to him. He felt his heart crack.

"I'm sorry, Danny, for the way I acted. I was confused and scared. I still don't understand, but I _do_ know that you're my son. That I love you very much. And that you need help."

Danny shook his head. "I don't need-"

She gave a little laugh, a little shake of her head. "See? You're _sixteen_, Danny. You've been experimented on, manipulated by people, controlled, stalked and hunted by God-knows-who else. You realize that's not _normal_, right?"

"I know," Danny whispered. "But-"

"But nothing, Danno," his father rumbled. His voice vibrated in Danny's chest. "You're a teenager. We're your parents."

Danny stayed silent this time, not sure what to think. He couldn't really tell them anything - not and keep them safe and sane. He knew that, deep down inside his heat. But at the same time, he couldn't help but wonder what life would be like if they knew...

His mother reached forwards and touched his cheek. Strangely, her hand came away from his face wet with tears. "It hurts that you've hid this from us, but I've got to believe you had a reason. It scares me to think that what happened to you that would cause that. It's agonizing to remember some of the things we…" she railed off, shaking her head. "But all that aside, Danny…"

The hand came back, touched his chin, forced him to look up at her. Danny gazed at her nose, unable to meet her eyes.

"I'm terrified to think I might not know you anymore." Her voice was soft and broken. "I _want_ to. I want to very, very much. I need to know who my son is."

Danny found his gaze wandering to his sister, forgotten in her chair across the room, watching with wide eyes. She noted his gaze and smiled, nodding to him.

Danny glanced up at the open, calm face of his father before jumping back to his mother's eyes. "Nothing will ever be the same," he breathed, a last ditch attempt to talk her out of what she was asking.

"That's life," she said softly, holding onto his hands tightly. "Only ghosts get to keep things the same. Danny. Please."

His father's arm was warm and solid around him. His mother's hand were cool and nervous, shaking and fidgeting. His sister was a calm corner of the room, watching and waiting.

His eyes started to burn as power built up in them. He was careful to keep the energy contained to his body, to keep it from hurting his parents. It sizzled under his skin.

It was the endless power of life and death. It hummed and sang to a tune all its own – intoxicating, seductive, deadly. It was to be loved and hated, feared and conquered, both master and servant to those who touched it. All of eternity stretched before it, timeless and effortless.

Someone – perhaps two someones – caught their breath when Danny's eyes started to glow. Their fingers tensed as he slowly let down the walls he'd built – the Son and the Hero and the Loser. Until it was just him.

Just Danny. Nothing more, nothing less.

Only he wasn't alone this time as he threw himself off the cliff into the future, nervously taking the plunge.


End file.
